Reference: Confucianism
Reference: The World’s Religions by Huston Smith
[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]
The project of becoming fully human involves transcending, sequentially, egoism, nepotism, parochialism, ethnocentrism, and chauvinistic nationalism, and isolating, self-sufficient humanism.
Is Confucianism a religion, or is it an ethic? The answer depends on how one defines religion. With its close attention to personal conduct and the moral order, Confucianism approaches life from a different angle than do other religions, but that does not necessarily disqualify it religiously. If religion is taken in its widest sense, as a way of life woven around a people’s ultimate concerns, Confucianism clearly qualifies. Even if religion is taken in a narrower sense, as a concern to align humanity with the transcendental ground of its existence, Confucianism is still a religion, albeit a muted one. For though we have thus far spoken only of Confucius’ social concerns, these, while definitely the focus, did not exhaust his outlook.
Religion, in its widest sense, is a way of life woven around a people’s ultimate concerns. In a narrower sense, it is a concern to align humanity with the transcendental ground of its existence. Confucianism qualifies as a religion.
To see the transcendent dimension of Confucianism in perspective, we need to set it against the religious background of the ancient China in which Confucius lived. Until the first millennium B.C., the unquestioned outlook was a compound of three related ingredients:
First, Heaven and Earth were considered a continuum. The terms referred not primarily to places but to the people who dwelt in those places, as the House of Lords refers to the people who sit in that House. The people who comprised Heaven were the ancestors (ti) who were ruled over by a supreme ancestor (Shang Ti). They were the forefathers who had gone ahead and soon would be joined by the present retinue of Earth—the whole was one unbroken procession in which death spelled no more than promotion to a more honorable estate. The two realms were mutually implicated and in constant touch. Heaven held control of Earth’s welfare—the weather for example was “Heaven’s mood”—while depending on the current inhabitants of Earth to supply some of her needs through sacrifice. Of the two realms Heaven was by far the more important. Her inhabitants were more venerable and august and their authority was greater. Consequently, they commanded Earth’s reverence and dominated her imaginings.
Until the first millennium B.C., Heaven and Earth were considered a continuum. The people who comprised Heaven were the ancestors (ti) who were ruled over by a supreme ancestor (Shang Ti). were more venerable and august and their authority was greater.
Being mutually dependent, Heaven and Earth would have needed to communicate for reasons of need even if not affection. The most concrete way by which Earth spoke to Heaven was through sacrifices. Earth’s residents thought it both wise and natural to share their goods with their departed ancestors, and the essences of their earthly goods were carried to Heaven on the ascending smoke of the sacrificial fire. A mound for such offerings was the focus of every ancient village. When the Chinese nation arose, its ruler, the Son of Heaven, affirmed his right to that proud title by overseeing the nation’s sacrifices to its ancestors. Even as late as Confucius’ day, an administration that lapsed in its worship of the ancestors was considered to have lost its right to rule.
Being mutually dependent, Heaven and Earth would have needed to communicate. Earth spoke to Heaven was through sacrifices. An administration that lapsed in its worship of the ancestors was considered to have lost its right to rule.
If sacrifice was the principal way Earth spoke to Heaven, augury was the channel through which Heaven responded. As the ancestors knew the entire past of their people, they were equipped to calculate its future. Augury was the device by which the present generation might tap into that knowledge. Being pleasantly disposed toward their descendants, the ancestors would naturally want to share with them their knowledge of things to come. They no longer possessed vocal cords, however, and therefore needed to resort to signs. It followed that everything that happened on Earth fell into two classes. Things people did intentionally were ordinary, but things that “happened of themselves”—we should read that phrase with a tinge of apprehension—were to be noticed with care. They were ominous, for one never knew when they might constitute the ancestors’ efforts to get peoples’ attention, most urgently to warn them of impending danger. Some of these omens occurred within or to the body: itchings, sneezings, twitchings, stumblings, buzzings in the ears, tremblings of the eyelids. Others were external: thunder, lightning, the courses of the stars, the doings of insects, birds, and animals. It was also possible for people to take the initiative and actively seek out Heaven’s prescience. They could throw yarrow stalks on the ground and observe their pattern; they could apply a hot iron to a tortoise shell and examine the cracks that appeared. Whatever the occasion—a trip, a war, a birth, a marriage—it was prudent to look for heavenly tips. An ancient record tells of a visitor who was asked by his host to prolong his stay into the evening. He answered, “I have divined about the day. I have not divined about the night. I dare not.”
The Heaven responded in the way of augury. As the ancestors knew the entire past of their people, they were equipped to calculate its future.
In each of these great features of early Chinese religion—its sense of continuity with the ancestors, its sacrifice, and its augury—there was a common emphasis. The emphasis was on Heaven instead of Earth. To understand the total dimension of Confucianism as a religion it is important to see Confucius shifting his people’s attention from Heaven to Earth without dropping Heaven from the picture entirely.
The first of these twin aspects of Confucianism can be documented easily. On a much debated issue of his day—which should come first, the claims of earthly people or those of the spirit world through sacrifices?—he answered that though the spirits should not be neglected, people should come first. The worldliness and practical concern by which the Chinese were later to be known was coming to the fore, and Confucius did much to crystallize their this-world orientation.
Confucius was shifting his people’s attention from Heaven to Earth without dropping Heaven from the picture entirely.
“I do not say that the social as we know it is the whole,” wrote John Dewey, “but I do emphatically suggest that it is the widest and richest manifestation of the whole accessible to our observation.” Confucius would have agreed. His philosophy was a blend of common sense and practical wisdom. It contained no depth of metaphysical thought, no flights of speculation, no soul-stirring calls to cosmic piety. Normally, he “did not talk about spirits.” “Recognize that you know what you know, and that you are ignorant of what you do not know,” he said. “Hear much, leave to one side that which is doubtful, and speak with due caution concerning the remainder. See much, leave to one side that of which the meaning is not clear, and act carefully with regard to the rest.” Consequently, whenever he was questioned about other-worldly matters, Confucius drew the focus back to human beings. Asked about serving the spirits of the dead, he answered, “You are not even able to serve people. How can you serve the spirits?” Asked about death itself, he replied, “You do not understand even life. How can you understand death?” In short: one world at a time.
The philosophy of Confucius was a blend of common sense and practical wisdom.
One specific illustration of the way in which Confucius shifted the focus from Heaven to Earth is seen in his change of emphasis from ancestor worship to filial piety. In ancient China the dead were actually worshiped. True to the conservative component in his nature, Confucius did nothing to interrupt the ancestral rites themselves. He did not deny that the spirits of the dead exist; on the contrary he advised treating them “as if they were present.” At the same time his own emphasis was directed toward the living family. He stressed that the most sacred tie is the tie among blood relatives. For him the obligations of present members of a family to one another were more important than their duties to the departed.
For Confucius the obligations of present members of a family to one another were more important than their duties to the departed.
The extent to which Confucius shifted emphasis from Heaven to Earth should not lead us to think that he sundered Earth from Heaven entirely. He did not repudiate the main outlines of the world-view of his time, composed of Heaven and Earth, the divine creative pair, half physical and half more-than-physical, ruled over by the supreme Shang Ti. Reserved as he was about the supernatural, he was not without it; somewhere in the universe there was a power that was on the side of right. The spread of righteousness was, therefore, a cosmic demand, and “the Will of Heaven” the first thing a chun tzu would respect. Confucius believed that he had a mandate to spread his teachings. When during the “long trek” he was attacked in the town of Kwang, he reassured his followers by saying, “Heaven has appointed me to teach this doctrine, and until I have done so, what can the people of Kwang do to me?” Feeling neglected by his people, he consoled himself with the thought: “There is Heaven—that knows me!” One of the most quoted religious sayings of all times came from his pen. “He who offends the gods has no one to pray to.”
Confucius did not repudiate the main outlines of the world-view of his time, composed of Heaven and Earth. For him, somewhere in the universe there was a power that was on the side of right.
This restrained and somewhat attenuated theism enables us to understand why a contemporary Confucian scholar can write that “the highest Confucian ideal is the unity of Man and Heaven,” adding that in the Doctrine of the Mean this is described as “man forming a trinity with Heaven and Earth.” With this unity or trinity established as the consummating goal of the Confucian project, we can pick up on its successive steps, which in our earlier enumeration stopped short of the final goal. The project of becoming fully human involves transcending, sequentially, egoism, nepotism, parochialism, ethnocentrism, and chauvinistic nationalism, and (we should now add) isolating, self-sufficient humanism. To continue with the words of the Confucian scholar just quoted:
To make ourselves deserving partners of Heaven, we must be constantly in touch with that silent illumination that makes the rightness and principle in our heart-minds shine forth brilliantly. If we cannot go beyond the constraints of our own species, the most we can hope for is an exclusive, secular humanism advocating man as the measure of all things. By contrast, Confucian humanism is inclusive; it is predicated on an “anthropocosmic” vision. Humanity in its all-embracing fullness “forms one body with Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things” and enables us to embody the cosmos in our sensitivity.
The project of becoming fully human involves transcending, sequentially, egoism, nepotism, parochialism, ethnocentrism, and chauvinistic nationalism, and isolating, self-sufficient humanism.
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