Confucian-Christian Dialogue In The Perspective Of Relationship And Its Contemporary Interpretation

In the time of globalization and pluralism, we have interred into "the Second Axial Age", accordingly, global awareness, trans-culture awareness, multicultural awareness and dialogue awareness are the requirements of times. With the rise of world-wide cultural exchanges and religious dialogues, Confucianism and Christianity as the major parts of Sino-Western cultural exchanges, their dialogue has finally scattered the dense fog throughout the history, and come into a whole new stage. In their dialogues, the dialogue models of dogmatism and exclusivism have been replaced by dialogue models of inclusivism, pluralism and fuse gradually, and their relationship have endured from collision, conflict, confrontation and hostility to understanding, dialogues, communication and integration. In this brand-new opportunity, the research for the dialogues between Confucianism and Christianity are of great significance.In a modern or post-modern era, what is the significance of the dialogues between Confucianism and Christianity? What are the similarities and differences between Confucianism and Christianity? How to realize a more profound, comprehensive dialogue between Confucianism and Christianity? Confucianism, with its characters of humanity and morality, what’s its value for Christianity, and what can it study from Christianity in return? Similarly, Christianity with its characters of theology and revelation, what’s its affect for Confucianism, and what should it learn from Confucianism in return? How can Confucianism and Christianity update and improve their theories through their dialogues? Such concerns are the reason for choosing this title, and they are also the main purpose of this dissertation.Grounded on the excellent previous studies, based on the related information from religion, ethics, sociology, economics, and environmental philosophy synthetically, adopted various ways, such as hermeneutics, existentialism and religious dialogue, and employed methods of comparison between past and present, and the comparison between Sino-Western, this dissertation expounds the above subjects systematically and methodically. Got to the root of the matter, focused on Mencius and Paul as two key figures in Confucianism and Christianity, traced back to "all classes of authors" in Chinese history and Roman Peace in Western history as history background, based on the original Confucianism and early Christian philosophy, applied the relationship philosophy of Martin Buber as framework, referred to the various material, this dissertation discusses the advantages and disadvantages both in Confucianism and Christianity, in which it explains the similarities and differences from different perspectives. It follows the basic connotation, as well as creates new ideas, and discusses the inspiration that the dialogues between Confucianism and Christianity have brought for moral society.In together, this dissertation consists of three parts:introduction, main body and conclusion. The introduction part is the outline and generality of the dissertation, this part introduces the basic academic background, and explains the reasons and main methods of the dissertation, it also expounds the historical background, brief introduction, theory origin and theory structure of Mencius and Paul separately. In terms of the main body, it contains five chapters. Chapter one:The relationship between human and the Sacred, this chapter is the ontology of the whole dissertation, and the sacred origin and basic fundamental basis for the other chapters. It interprets the Heaven in Mencius’thought and God in Paul’s thought, and points out their common points and their different characters, argues the connection between the sacred and human nature, makes a summary of the different perspective of Mencius’"discrepancy between human and brute" and Paul’s "difference between human and God" referring to the recent hot topics in Confucianism and Christianity dialogue, discusses deeply the connection between transcendence and immanence both in Heaven and God, and points out their different emphasis, and applies the related theories of religions, it also clarifies the different religious characters in Confucianism and Christianity and their mutually complementary. Chapter Two:the relationship between human himself, this chapter investigates the relationship between body and mind, or the relationship between flesh and spirit. It depicts in details Mencius’"difference between mind and other physical senses" and Paul’s "battle between spirit and flesh", and concludes their common desires for real nature, explains deeply Mencius’"discrimination between human nature and destiny" and Paul’s "relationship between virtue and bless", interprets their common thinking for freedom and destiny; compares Mencius’"benevolence and rite" with Paul’s "faith and behaviors", and finds out the external standard and internal spirit; deeply discusses Mencius’sanctification and Paul’s holiness and analyses their common concerns and their different ways to attain sanctification or holiness. Chapter three:the relationship between human and social communities, this chapter mainly discusses the ethical relationships between people, it interprets Mencius’concept of benevolence and Paul’s idea of love, as well as their religious origins and social connotation; From the perspective of politics, it expounds in details Mencius’"difference between benevolence government and bully government" and Paul’s "distinction between Roman pence and Christ pence", sums up separately their positive and negative significance and historical limitation, and finds out their reference to today’s political ideas; From the perspective of family, it interprets Mencius and Paul’filial piety, analyses the features of family affection, bond of kin and moral nature in Mencius’filial piety and revelatory, contractual and theological characters in Paul’s filial piety, as well as investigates their mutual comparison and complementation; From the perspective of economics, it expatiates Mencius’"difference between justice and interest" and Paul’s "difference between God and money", finds out the characters of valuing justice above interest in Mencius’ economical thoughts and the inclination of out-world and asceticism in Paul’s economical thought, and points out their different impacts to Sino-Western traditions. Chapter four:the relationship between human and nature, this chapter expounds deeply Mencius’and Paul’s ecological thoughts, interprets that Mencius’ecological thought is attached to morality and politics, and Paul’s ecological thought is depended on theology, points out their different influences to both of their ecological attitude, consume view and scientific development, and finds out their similarities and differences. Chapter five: utopia, this chapter primarily discusses Mencius and Paul’s ultimate pictures for ideal world, it embodies in details Mencius’perfect world and Paul’s New world, analyses the retrospective tradition, aian history view in Mencius’perfect world and Paul’s eschatological tradition and linear history view, based on which points out the moral and political characters in Mencius’ perfect world and theological and revelatory features in Paul’s New world, and sums up their mutual complementation and reference. The conclusion part is the summary for the whole dissertation and forecast for the future of the dialogue between Confucianism and Christianity. It concludes that the fusion between Confucianism and Christianity are both possible and necessary. Because their difference is not about the essence, but about the languages they used to describe the essence. Confucianism is a language of morality while Christianity is a language of theology. So Confucianism and Christianity are both the listener of the truth, they should seek their deep fusion in spirit despite of their language difference, they should establish a mutual "Thou and I" relationship through self-affirmation and self-negation, so that, they can transfer both of their ideology structure in mutual witness, enlightenment and inspiration, and pursuit the mystery of ultimate truth in mutual encounter, opening and combining.