China and the West

Ramsay, Andrew Michel. The philosophical principles of natural and revealed religion [ID D26758].
Quelle : Joseph Henri-Marie de Prémare.
Er schreibt : The Chinese whose origin goes back very near to the times of the deluge, have five original or canonical books called KING, which in their language signifies, a sublime, sacred, immutable doctrine founded upon uhshaken principles. The names of these books are Y-KING, CHU-KING, CHI-KING, TCHUNISON, and LIKI. These books were looked upon as of a very remote antiquity, in the time of Confucius who lived about six hundred years before our Saviour. All the other books of any note in China are commentaries upon these five ; and these five canonical books are honoured in that country with the same veneration we pay to the holy scriptures. I shall not found any of my reasonings upon the explication of the hieroglyphical Chinese characters, in which some Europeans pretend to find the sublimest mysteries ; I shall quote only these passages of the original books, about which the Chinese interpreters agree, confine myself as much as possible to the commentaries made upon these sacred books before the coming of our Saviour, by Confucius, or his most ancient disciples, and mention no authors later than the twelfth centuy, ere Europeans or Chistians had any communication with China. As the Chinese books I mention are already brought into Europe, and lodged in several great libraries, those who understand the language may as certain the truth of the following quotations.
In the books called KING, God is named CHANG-Ti, or the Sovereign Emperor, and TIEN the supream heaven, the august Heaven, the intelligent Heaven, the self-existent Unity, who is present every where, and who produced all things by his power. Tchu-hi, in commenting upon these expressions, says, "The supreme Unity is most simple and without compsition. He lasts from all eternity without interruption. He is ancient and new ; he is the fource of all motion and the root of all action. If you ask what he does, he is eternally active. If you would know where he is, he exists every where and nourishes all things". Kouan-y-antsee, a very ancient philosopher, in commenting upon the same sacred books, says, "Heaven and earth, tho they be of an immense extent, have figure, colour, number and quantity. I conceive something that has neither colour, number, figure, nor quantity ; and therefore I say that he who made the heavens and the earth is intelligent and eternal. He who produced all things was not produced himself, he who destroys all things is indestructible : therefore he who made the heavens is not the heavens, and he who made the earth is not the earth ; the heavens are not self-existent but werde produced by another, as a house cannot exist by itself, unless it be made". Here then is a plain acknowledgment of two great truths already demonstrated in the first Part, viz. That there is a real distinction betwixt corporeal and intelligent substances, as also betwixt the substance of the Creator and that of the creature. Yntchin adds, "If there were nothing in nature but matter and motion, this would not be the sovereign lord and intelligent governor of all things". Hoian-nantsee says, "If you ask me whence all things come, I will answer, that all was made by the great Unity, which is the origin of all things, and the sovereign power that nothing can resist. He who knows this great Unity knows all, he who does not know him knows noting". Liou-pouci says, "that the supream Unity comprehends all perfections in a sovereign degree, we cannot discover his beginning nor his end, his origin nor his bounds ; and all things flow from him".
The same books of King call God TAO, which signifies reason, law, eternal code ; YEN, word of speech ; TCHING-CHE, sovereign truth. The philosopher Laotsee, in commenting upon these passages, says, "that reason which can be expressed is not the eternal reason. What is eternal cannot be changed. He was before the heavens and the earth, without beginning. He will last after the world without end. He cannot be comprehended by thought nor seen by the eye, nor expressed by words". Kouan-y-antsee contemporary of Laotsee, in commenting upon the same passages, says, "If there were no eternal reason we could not think, and what cannot be conceived or expressed is this sovereign reason. The supream reason is not heard by the car, he does not strike the eyes, he cannot be expressed by words". Hoi-an-nantsee adds, "this eternal reason seeds the heavens, and supports the earth. He is most high, and cannot be reached to ; most profound, and cannot be fathomed ; immense, and cannot be measured, yet he exists entirely every where in the least thing". Those great men were far from confounding infinite space with the divine immensity. The same author continues thus, "It is this almighty reason which produced the mountains and the abyss, which makes the animals walk, the birds fly, the sun shine, and the stars move". Pao-pout-see adds, "this supream reason encompasses heaven, holds the earth in his hands, is ineffable and without any name. If you consider his supream incorporeity, air and shadows are something gross, and material. If you consider his essence, all beings are nothings before him". What would these Chinese philosophers say, if they heard our European doctors maintain that God's omnipresence constitutes infinite space, and that extension and thought may be properties of the same substance. To be sure they would have looked upon us, as an ignorant, barbarous nation that have not yet learned the first elements of wisdom.
The same sacred, original books represent the CHANG-TI, or sovereign Lord, as just and good, full of mercy and love for his creatures, they say even expressly, that his justice is love, and his punishments mercies. In the book CHI-KING we read these words ; "Mankind overwhelmed with afflictions seem to doubt of providence, but when the hour of executing his decreed shall come, none can resist him. He will then shew, that when he punished, he was just and good ; and that he never acted by vengeance, nor hatred". This is a far more nobel idea of vindictive justice than what the Christian schoolmen give. How surprized would the Chinese, who understand this divine passage, be, if they heard the fatalistical doctors maintain that God has divided mankind into two masses, the one desined by absolute decrees to eternal happiness, and the other by direct, arbitrary preteritions abandoned to everlasing misery. To be sure, they would suspect that these pretended divines were concealed and disguised atheists. The philosopher Tehu-fongt-ching comments upon the foregoing passages thus, "To render the good happy and punish severely the wicked is the constant rule of heaven. If we do not see at present the good recompensed, and the wickes punished, it is because the decisive hour is not yet come. Before this last moment men can, so to speak, vanquish, or resist heaven, but when the decree shall be pronounced, heaven will triumph. When TIEN punishes, he seems to be in wrath, but justice demands the punishment of crime, and justice is exempt from wrath and hatred, for justice is goodness". This doctrine is perfectly conform to that of Moses and the prophets, who still represent God as a jealous God, full of wrath and indignation against sin, but never irreconcilable to the sinner, since he is the lover of fouls, and the father of spirits, full of mercy, long-suffering and patient, forgiving iniquities and blotting out transgressions.
Thus the ancient Chinese books, and the Chinese commentators who understand these original traditions, represent God as eternal, in corporeal, sovereignly one, and supreamly intelligent, the just rewarder of the good, and punisher of the bad, whose justice is mercy, and whose punishments are cures.