Title

"Service to Heaven" and "Reverence for Heaven": Religious Concerns of Four Marginal Confucians in the Late Ming and Early Qing Dynasties

Author

Zhen Wu

Genre

Article  

Pages

125-163    

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

service to Heaven, reverence for Heaven, fear of Heaven, establishing one`s destiny, Confucianism, religionization of Confucianism     

Abstract

    Instead of  "great figures" in "grand narratives," this article is a case study of four marginal Confucians in the under-developed areas of China during the Late Ming and Early Qing Dynasties: Wen Xiangfeng in Shanxi, Wang Qiyuan in Guangxi, Xie Wencun in Jiangxi, and Wei Yijie in Hebei. The paper aims to show that, in addition to their Confucian convictions, their unique ideas on religious matters also deserve our close attention. Particularly, it attempts to show that (i) they all advocate the ideas of  "service to Heaven," "reverence for Heaven," "fear of Heaven," and "establishing one`s destiny," with some of them even attempting to institutionalize a Confucian or Ruist religion; (ii) their conceptualizations of the religious ideas of  "Heaven" and "God" vividly reflect the interactions between Confucianism and other religions in that period; and (iii) they assess and reject Catholicism as a foreign religion from their standpoint as followers of either traditional religions or Neo-Confucianism. In short, this intellectual trend of the Ming-Qing Dynasties demands our serious attention.