The Correct Meaning Of Oneness Of Heaven And Man

As an important concept in Chinese philosophy, the meaning of oneness of heaven and man is specific and rich. But, its meaning has been becoming uncertain and poor, because of the domestic scholars’ research on it. Because scholars ignore the background of the relationship between heaven and man, they look upon oneness of heaven and man as the theme of the Chinese philosophy, and regard all kinds of thoughts about the relationship between heaven and man as oneness of heaven and man. This causes the meaning of oneness of heaven and man become generalization. Because they think that heaven in Chinese philosophy is equivalent to nature in western philosophy, oneness of heaven and man is interpreted as the combination of human and nature. This causes the meaning of oneness of heaven and man become poor.To solve this problem, we must understand the original meaning of oneness of heaven and man. The key is the meaning of heaven in Chinese philosophy. Heaven in Chinese philosophy is a multiple concept, but the main meaning is nature and God. Furthermore, nature and God is the one thing, nature focuses on the substance and God focuses on the spirit. If ignoring each one of the two, the meaning of heaven is incomplete.In the Song Dynasty, the concept oneness of heaven and man was brought up for the first time by Zhang Zai. He developed the traditional Qi-theory to the theory of Qi ontology and inherited the mind-nature theory of Pre-Qin Confucian. He combined the two theories and formed the theory of oneness of heaven and man that heaven and man are made of Qi, and have the same nature. That heaven and man are made of Qi means that heaven is nature, that heaven and man have the same nature means that heaven is God. Nature and God are the one thing and cannot be divided, so the theory of heaven and man being made of Qi and the theory of heaven and man having the same nature cannot be divided, too. It is caused by Zhang Zai’s thought of Xuqi that Taixu is Qi and Qi includes the nature of Qi. He called this nature Xu&Shen. We can comprehend the theory of oneness of heaven and man from two aspects:it is not only the highest possible stage of the relationship between heaven and man, but also a process of going to the highest possible stage. To fulfill this theory, Zhang Zai standed that we can build a set of word order that heaven and man are an integral whole by means of exploring thoroughly the logos and nature and setting rite and music syestems, changing man’s born nature and reaching to temperament.After Zhang Zai, Cheng Yi, Cheng Hao, Zhu xi, Lu Jiuyuan, Wang Yangming, Wang Fuzhi and others further enrich and develop the theory of oneness of heaven and man. Though they didn’t agree with some opinions of Zhang Zai’s theory and criticised them, they didn’t have fundamentally different in contents, ways, destinations and others of oneness of heaven and man.During the second half of the20th century, oneness of heaven and man had been found by western ecological ethics at first time to solving the serious ecological crisis. Western eco-ethicists believed that this theory can solve the ecological crisis. Since1990s, domestic scholars have been agreeing with this opinion, and even thinking that oneness of heaven and man is oneness of nature and human. However, it is misread. Because, from the angle of human and nature, oneness of heaven and man of Chinese philosophy emphasizes that heaven and man are made of the same material, namely heaven and man are made of Qi, from the angle of man and God, it emphasizes that heaven, god, ghost and man have the same nature, namely heaven and man all have the logos, or have the same virtue, and so on. So, though oneness of heaven and man involves relationships between man and nature, it is not related to the ecological question, even not the oneness of human and nature.