In a confucian worldview, human affairs is conceived as part of a hierarchically ordered organic whole and an individual's relationship with the whole is mediated by extended social networks, including, family, lineage, community, and the state. These networks are a web of reciprocal duties and responsibilities and these are ideally governed by a benevolent king who personifies a "Heavenly law." Changes are understood as minor variations in instantiation of an idealized past. In these written ideals, the model of conduct and behavior is laid down by the old sages which individuals are encouraged to study and emulate....
This sounds remarkably like Catholicism. What do you think?
Where did that quote come from?
It is seems Providential how much Confucianism mirrors a secular Catholicism.
There is a canonical set of writings, the Six Classics (only Five survive today) and the Four Books. Like the Sacred Scriptures, they cover a wide range of topics - there is a book of odes that served a similar function as the Psalms in the ancient sacrificial rites, there is a book of history like the Historical Books, there is a book of laws and etiquette that mirrors Leviticus. The Four Books (two of which, the Great Learning and the Mean are actually taken from one of the Six Classics) are like a New Testament, fulfilling the Old Testament which is the Six Classics. The Great Learning is a very serious call to introspection and self-cultivation, the Doctrine of the Mean is like a guide for accomplished sages, much like some the Wisdom books in the Old Testament. The Analects is quasi-Gospel like, in that it is just the "digested" sayings of Confucius recorded by his disciples. The Mencius is like the Pauline epistles.
Beyond that canon, there are endless commentaries of later Confucians that form the "Sacred Tradition" that explains and gives relevance to the "Sacred Scripture".
If one desires mysticism, one need not go any farther than the Tao Te Ching of Lao-tzu or the Chuang-tzu.
Different schools arose - Confucian only commented that all men had a similar nature. Mencius stated that men are naturally good, Xunzi that they were naturally evil. Yangzi said that human nature was a mix of good and evil - doesn't this sound like man's fallen nature?
The will of Heaven, "t'ian-ming", is just like Providence. Mencius writes that nothing happens that is not the will of Heaven and that those who wish to cultivate virtue in themselves should prepare for tribulation (doesn't this sound similar to passages in the Old Testament?), Confucius says that the superior man fears three things - the will of Heaven, great men, and the words of the sages. The striking similarities of the Tao Te Ching to the Gospels has already been noted on this forum.
It's not surprising that Matteo Ricci went so deep into Confucianism - it is the means that God has intented Catholicism to be spread by. In many ways, it seems superior to the Greco-Roman foundations the Church had to build on in the West.
Christianity as a whole is truly more Eastern than it is Western, but it embraces both. It is beyond East and West, as John Wu wrote.
Anyone that seriously wants to partcipate in the evangelization of the East, even if it is not destined until several decades hence out to make an effort to study classical Chinese, the Confucian and Daoist classics and commentaries, make a cursory study of Chinese Buddhism, and Matteo Ricci's work "The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven".
The reason why Chinese people are so hard to convert is that they really have all they need - Confucianism for their moral system to put them in place with society and each other, Daoism to put them in place with nature and spirituality, Buddhism to put them in place with the supernatural. What the Church needs to do is capitalize on Confucianism and the non-religious elements of Daoism in order to crush Buddhism and the religious off-shoots of post-Chuang-tzu Daoism.
That's why Matteo Ricci always repeats in his book "Why have you Confucians adopted the base teachings of Buddha and the Daoists. You have the orthodox teachings of Confucius, why do you go like beggars and seek to mix scraps fit for dogs into his doctrine?".
In fact, there are elements of almost all school of Chinese thought that can be capitalized on by the Church.
First step - learn classical Chinese.
Topic: Confucianism and Catholicism (Read 707 times)