| God-centered Biblical Jewish ethics and Human-centered Pre-Qin Confucian ethics stand for quite different ethical categories, different in the basis, essence, orientation and destination of their ethical theories, diverted in moral standards, principles, systems and structures. But they also share some aspects in common, such as the concern for world, human life, reality and future, the real pursuit of moral behavior and practice, the nurture of national psychology and national spirits, etc. The common aspects of different ethics are determined by the common human nature and the familiar recognition of human himself. In the background of dialogue, negotiation and mutual complement, it would be of great value to analyze and compare the two.I.God and Heaven: the cores of Biblical Jewish ethics and Pre-Qin Confucian ethicsThe divine subjects God and Heaven are the cores of Biblical Jewish ethics and Pre-Qin Confucian ethics. God is not only the creator and giver of ethical values, origin and basis of moral laws, but also the standard of good and evil; while the pre-Qin Confucianism also regarded Heaven as the ultimate basis of human value and moral, "morality is descended form Heaven", "Heaven is the basis of Moral", that is, human moral values originated from Heaven.1. Similarities between God and HeavenGod and Heaven are both highest deity and considered as the origin of the world, "the utmost concern"; they are both personal with intellect and knowledge, and they have the Will to award and punish; they are both majestic and close to human who loves and fear God or Heaven; God is omnipresent, both deity and personal. Dao of Heaven connects with Dao of Human, and Heaven unifies with human; God and Heaven are the maker and final basis of moral laws; God creates and controls the world of human spirits and Heaven is the final basis of moral laws.2. Differences between God and HeavenGod is the unity of essence and function; God created the world and human being in time, in order and in a distinct way, while the pre-Qin Confucianism proposed Heaven bore human without clarifying the exact process, which is only in a functional sense; Judaism is strictly a monotheism, which exclude other deities from the only one Lord, while the pre-Qin Confucian belief is a system of pedigree of deities, a polytheism of "respecting Heaven, offering sacrifices to Ancestors, fearing ghosts and gods"; God and Heaven are both supernaturally decisive powers, but as in the dependence and praying to God and Heaven, Judaism is fatalism while Confucianism is Heaven-oriented; in the God-Human relationship, God is dominant and decisive, while in the Heaven-Human relationship, Heaven is the basis and Human is the center, which is the essential difference between deity-orientation and human-orientation.II. Love and Ren: the core motif of Biblical Jewish ethics and Pre-Qin ConfucianethicsLove is the basis spirit of Jewish ethics while Ren is the key guiding principle. A comparison between Love and Ren is in nature a comparison of the core spirits of the two systems. In the system of Biblical Jewish ethics, Love includes the two propositions: "loving God" and "loving your neighbors", and Love is interpreted from different perspectives, such as justice, unbiasedness, equality, mercy, etc. While in the system of pre-Qin ethics, Ren is both the loving of human, the prescript of human nature, and specific moralities, general moral principles, the moral of morals and the standard of standards.1. Differences between Love and RenLove and Ren are from different origins: the former is God-centered, and is the love of Deity; while Ren is rooted in human nature, and is the love of humanity. So that is a difference between love of Deity and love of human. The two have different objects: human's love toward God is the response to God's love of human, then in the utmost sense the subject of Love is God; the love form the humans with Ren is orientated primarily and essentially to human. The difference of the forms of the two is the difference between love of covenant and love of humanity, equal love and hierarchical love, covenant ethics and human order with law of the clan, etc. They enjoy different positions in the two systems: in the system of biblical Jewish ethics, Love is the basic moral principle but in biblical Judaism, commandments are more authoritative. In the system of pre-Qin Confucian ethics, Ren is the key moral principle, the axle of the social moral rules, and is above the other principles and rules.2. Similarities between Love and RenLove and Ren both have universal value: the "loving your neighbors" in biblical Jewish ethics is the love to everyone including the strangers, especially the weak of society. The love of pre-Qin Confucianism is the unity of love of blood and of pan-blood, which is spread from love of family to love of the world and human being, "respect parents and then 'Ren' the people, 'Ren' the people and then love every thing in the world". The two have similar principles: "love others as love yourself in Judaism, and "person with Ren loves the people" in Confucianism, both obey a basic principle, "do not do to others what you don't want others to do to you", the Golden Law. The two are similar in their function, social utility and goal of values: loving others as one loves himself, being filial and respectful to parents, respecting the old and loving the young, supporting the poor and helping the weak, obeying the law, etc. The Messianic ideal society of Judaism and the "Da Tong" of Confucianism are similar goal of values.III. Commandments and Li: the basic characteristics of biblical Jewish ethics and pre-Qin Confucian ethicsJews are a "people of commandments", while the Chinese people is a "nation of Li and Yi". Commandment and Li are important cultural symbols of the two nations, and greatly inclusive cultural categories. Covenants, religion, laws, morality are all included into Commandment; while Li covers three basic dimensions: Heaven, Earth and Human,is a cultural life integrated with religion, morality, laws, customs and political systems, and includes the content of society, politics, laws, ethics, religion, arts and philosophy.1. Differences between Commandment and LiRule of Commandment and rule of Li: the essential spirit of rule of Commandment is to maintain the equality among the people, while the nature of rule of Li is "Fen", that is, hierarchy, or inequality. The aim of the former is to break down the obstacles in person- to-person relations, such as classes, hierarchy in position and wealth, while the latter is to maintain the clarification of people according to their social positions and wealth and hence form diverse "Fen". They are two different processes, legalization of morality and moralization of laws, the former emphasizing laws and the latter morality. They are the difference of rule of Deity and rule of human: Commandments are based on Judaic monotheism and Hebrew laws are religious laws, while the rule of Li of pre-Qin Confucianism is based on "respecting parents" and "respecting the persons of higher positions", and Li is a system of laws of clans. Jews believe that commandments were from God and God is the maker of commandments, while for the pre-Qin Confucianism, the foundation and promotion of Li is by sages, scholars with Ren and Jun Zi. So, for Jews, rule of laws is the rule of God, while for Confucian scholars, rule of Li is the rule of human. The difference between religious and secular: Jewish ethics are ethical religion and religious ethics at the same time. The pre-Qin Confucian ethics was rooted in ancient laws of clans, natural economy and agricultural society, the authority of moral rules rest on former kings, sages, patriarchs and lords, not the exterior God, so its ethics of laws of clans and political ethics are all secular ethics.2. Similarities between Commandment and LiAs the representative forms of early human civilization, Commandment and Li share some characters in common in connotation. Legalization of moral and moralization of laws: in traditional societies, ethics, religion and politics are integrated as one and are not separable; in the system of Jewish laws, the rules are mostly religious commandments and moral percepts which are at the same time legal percepts and religious commandments, hence the relation between law and moral is the moralization of laws and legalization of morality; in the structure of Confucian Li, moral percepts and legal percepts are not clearly differentiated from each other, but the moralization of laws and legalization of morality are clear. Universal value of Commandment and Li. Commandment and Li are the most important mechanism of civilization which pervades in every field of society, and they have higher functions of connection, coordination and domination than any other mechanisms; creative interpretation, refinement and transmission of them will lead to universal systems, thoughts and opinions and guarantee the sound operation of society. Love, equality, impartiality, covenant, justice of biblical Jewish ethics and Ren, Yi, Li, Zhi and Xin of pre-Qin Confucian ethics are all protective mechanism of civilization among modern countries, persons, and between country and person; with the removal of the theistic aspects of Jewish laws and of the hierarchical chains of Confucian Li, the fruits of thoughts such as rules, order, systemand harmony, and of the ideas of contract, integrity, Zhong Yong, communication, dialog and negotiation, with come out of the trees of Commandment and Li.IV. Concepts of Good& Evil and humanity: important matters in Biblical Jewish Ethics and Pre-Qin Confucian EthicsThe conception of the problem of Good and Evil and its solution show the unique survival wisdom and national characteristics of Jewish people. The different designs and interpretations of Good or Evil as human nature in pre-Qin Confucian ethics showed that only on the road of moralization can human demonstrate and promote the humanity for witch human is called human.1. Differences between the two concepts of Good and EvilDifferent in the precondition of concepts of Good and Evil: in the biblical Jewish ethics, Good is originated divinely, good deed, pursuit of Good, together with justice, equality and sympathy, are no more than returning to the original Good of God. For pre-Qin Confucian ethics, human nature is the axis of the coordinate of Good and Evil, exploration and analysis of human and her nature is an important dimension of pre-Qin Confucian thoughts. Different in the characteristic of the concepts of Good and Evil: the combination of religious Good and Evil with ethical Good and Evil is a characteristic of the biblical Jewish ethics; while in pre-Qin Confucianism, the understanding of Good and Evil is a result of rational consideration, transcending the restrain from primitive taboo and religion. Different in the standards of concepts of Good and Evil: it is an important presumption in the biblical Jewish ethics that Good originates from the God, God and his law are the final standards of Good and Evil, while for the pre-Qin Confucianism, the final standards come from family, state and the whole society.2. Similarities of the two conceptsThe unity of self-discipline and other-discipline: the Biblical Jewish Ethics emphasizes other-discipline while the Pre-Qin Confucian Ethics emphasizes self-discipline. The standard of Good and Evil: in reality, both take morality as the standard of Good and Evil and as a positive evaluation. The method of abandoning Evil and following Good: confess and cultivation are basic methods and the cultivation of goodness is an accumulative process while the Biblical Jewish Ethics is strong in religion and the Pre-Qin Confucian Ethics strong in ethics.V.SummaryThe Biblical Jewish Ethics and the Pre-Qin Confucian Ethics belong to different cultural systems. The former is God-centered while the later Human-centered; in others words, one is religious ethics and the other is secular ethics. The two have some common aspects in being concerned with the world, life, reality, future and with cultivating national mentality and spirit. With different advantage and disadvantage, the two ethical systems may reinforce and learn from each other. |
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