Chinese theology


Chinese theology, which comes in different interpretations according to the Chinese classics and Chinese folk religion, and specifically Confucian, Taoist, and other philosophical formulations, is fundamentally monistic, that is to say it sees the world and the gods of its phenomena as an organic whole, or cosmos, which continuously emerges from a simple principle. This is expressed by the concept that "all things have one and the same principle". This principle is commonly referred to as, a concept generally translated as "Heaven", referring to the northern culmen and starry vault of the skies and its natural laws which regulate earthly phenomena and generate beings as their progenitors. Ancestors are therefore regarded as the equivalent of Heaven within human society, and hence as the means connecting back to Heaven which is the "utmost ancestral father". Chinese theology may be also called, a term already in use in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The universal principle that gives origin to the world is conceived as transcendent and immanent to creation at the same time. The Chinese idea of the universal God is expressed in different ways; there are many names of God from the various sources of Chinese tradition, reflecting a "hierarchic, multiperspective" observation of the supreme God.
Chinese scholars emphasise that the Chinese tradition contains two facets of the idea of God: one is the personified God of popular devotion, and the other one is the impersonal God of philosophical inquiry. Together, they express an "integrated definition of the monistic world".
Interest in traditional Chinese theology has waxed and waned over the various periods of the history of China. For instance, the Great Leap Forward enacted in the mid-20th century involved the outright destruction of traditional temples in accordance with Maoist ideology. From the 1980s onward, public revivals have taken place. Historically, Chinese theology has espoused that deities or stars are arranged in a "celestial bureaucracy" that influences earthly activities and is reflected by the hierarchy of the Chinese state itself. These beliefs have similarities with broader Asian Shamanism. The alignment of earthly and heavenly forces is upheld through the practice of rites and rituals,'' for instance, the festivals in which sacrificial offerings of incense and other products are set up by local temples, with participants hoping to renew the perceived alliance between community leaders and the gods.

Creation as ordering of primordial potentiality

As explained by the scholar Stephan Feuchtwang, in Chinese cosmology "the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy", organising as the polarity of yin and yang which characterises any thing and life. Creation is therefore a continuous ordering; it is not a. Yin and yang are the invisible and the visible, the receptive and the active, the unshaped and the shaped; they characterise the yearly cycle, the landscape, the sexes, and even sociopolitical history. The gods themselves are divided into yin forces of contraction, and yang forces of expansion ; in the human being they are the hun and po. Together, is another way to define the twofold operation of the God of Heaven, its resulting dynamism being called itself shen, spirit.
By the words of the Neo-Confucian thinker Cheng Yi:
Another Neo-Confucian, Zhu Xi, says:
The Chinese dragon, associated with the constellation Draco winding the north ecliptic pole and slithering between the Little and Big Dipper, represents the "protean" primordial power, which embodies both yin and yang in unity, and therefore the awesome unlimited power of divinity. In Han-dynasty traditions, Draco is described as the spear of the supreme God.
Heaven continuously begets—according to its own manifest model which is the starry vault revolving around the northern culmen —and reabsorbs, the temporal things and worlds. As explained in modern Confucian theology:
Rather than "creation", which has a long Western connotation of creation, modern Chinese theologians prefer to speak of "evolution" to describe the begetting of the cosmos; even in modern Chinese language the two concepts are frequently held together, . Such ordering power, which belongs to deities but also to humans, expresses itself in rites. They are the means by which alignment between the forces of the starry sky, of earthly phenomena, and the acts of human beings, is established. Such harmonisation is referred to as "centering". Rituals may be performed by government officials, family elders, popular ritual masters, and Taoists, the latter cultivating local gods to centre the forces of the universe upon a particular locality. Since humans are capable of centering natural forces, by the means of rites, they are themselves "central" to creation.
Human beings participate in the ongoing creation-evolution of the God of Heaven, acting as ancestors who may produce and influence other beings:
The relationship between oneness and multiplicity, between the supreme principle and the myriad things, is notably explained by Zhu Xi through the "metaphor of the moon":
In his terminology, the myriad things are generated as effects or actualities of the supreme principle, which, before in potence, sets in motion qi. The effects are different, forming the "myriad species", each relying upon their myriad modifications of the principle, depending on the varying contexts and engagements. Difference exists not only between the various categories of beings, but among individuals belonging to the same category as well, so that each creature is a unique coalescence of the cosmic principle. The qi of kindred beings accord and communicate with one another, and the same happens for the qi of worshippers and the god receiving sacrifice, and for the qi of an ancestor and his descendants. All beings are, at different levels, "in" the God of Heaven, not in the sense of addition but in the sense of belonging.
In the Confucian tradition, the perfect government is that which emulates the ordering of the starry vault of Heaven:

Names and attributes of the God of Heaven in the tradition

Since the Shang, the radical Chinese terms for the supreme God are and or simply. Another concept is. These names are combined in different ways in Chinese theological literature, often interchanged in the same paragraph if not in the same sentence. One of the combinations is the name of God used at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, which is the ; others are and.
God is considered manifest in this world as the northern culmen and starry vault of the skies which regulate nature. As its see, the circumpolar stars are known, among various names, as and, or the "celestial clock" regulating the four seasons of time. The Chinese supreme God is compared to the conception of the supreme God identified as the north celestial pole in other cultures, including the Mesopotamian An, and Enlil and Enki/Marduk, the Vedic Indra and Mitra–Varuna, the Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda, as well as the Dyeus of common Proto-Indo-European religion.
Throughout the Chinese theological literary tradition, the Dipper constellations, and especially the Big Dipper, also known as Great Chariot, within Ursa Major, are portrayed as the potent symbols of spirit, divinity, or of the activity of the supreme God regulating nature. Examples include:
is literally a title expressing dominance over the all-under-Heaven, that is all created things. It is etymologically and figuratively analogous to the concept of di as the base of a fruit, which falls and produces other fruits. This analogy is attested in the Shuowen Jiezi explaining "deity" as "what faces the base of a melon fruit". is usually translated as "Heaven", but by graphical etymology it means "Great One" and scholars relate it to the same through phonetic etymology and trace their common root, through their archaic forms respectively *Teeŋ and *Tees, to the symbols of the celestial pole and its spinning stars. Other words, such as would share the same etymology, all connected to a conceptualisation—according to the scholar John C. Didier—of the north celestial pole godhead as cosmic square. Zhou even connects, through Old Chinese and by phonetic etymology, to the Proto-Indo-European Dyeus. Medhurst also shows affinities in the usage of "deity", Chinese di, Greek and Latin deus, for incarnate powers resembling the supreme godhead.

Shang–Zhou theology

distinguishes two layers in the development of early Chinese theology, traditions derived respectively from the Shang and subsequent Zhou dynasties. The religion of the Shang was based on the worship of ancestors and god-kings, who survived as unseen divine forces after death. They were not transcendent entities, since the cosmos was "by itself so", not created by a force outside of it but generated by internal rhythms and cosmic powers. The royal ancestors were called, and the utmost progenitor was Shangdi, identified with the dragon. Already in Shang theology, the multiplicity of gods of nature and ancestors were viewed as parts of Shangdi, and the four and their as his cosmic will.
The Zhou dynasty, which overthrew the Shang, emphasised a more universal idea of. The Shang dynasty's identification of Shangdi as their ancestor-god had asserted their claim to power by divine right; the Zhou transformed this claim into a legitimacy based on moral power, the Mandate of Heaven. In Zhou theology, Tian had no singular earthly progeny, but bestowed divine favour on virtuous rulers. Zhou kings declared that their victory over the Shang was because they were virtuous and loved their people, while the Shang were tyrants and thus were deprived of power by Tian.

Tian

is both transcendent and immanent as the starry vault, manifesting in the three forms of dominance, destiny, and nature. There are many compounds of the name Tian, and many of these clearly distinguish a "Heaven of dominance", a "Heaven of destiny", and a "Heaven of nature" as attributes of the supreme cosmic God.
In the, "Different Meanings in the Five Classics"), Xu Shen explains that the designation of Heaven is quintuple:
  • —"August Heaven", "Yellow Heaven", or "Shining Heaven", when it is venerated as the lord of creation;
  • —"Vast Heaven", with regard to the vastness of its vital breath ;
  • —"Compassionate Heaven", for it hears and corresponds to justice to the all-under-Heaven;
  • —"Highest Heaven" or "First Heaven", for it is the primordial being supervising all-under-Heaven;
  • —"Deep-Green Heaven", for it being unfathomably deep.
Other names of the God of Heaven include:
  • —the "Deity of Heaven" or "Emperor of Heaven": "On Rectification" of the uses this term to refer to the active God of Heaven setting in motion creation;
  • —the "Lord of Heaven": In "The Document of Offering Sacrifices to Heaven and Earth on the Mountain Tai" of the Records of the Grand Historian it is used as the title of the first God from whom all the other gods derive.
  • —the "August Personage of Heaven": In the "Poem of Fathoming Profundity", transcribed in "The History of the Later Han Dynasty", Zhang Heng ornately writes: "I ask the superintendent of the Heavenly Gate to open the door and let me visit the King of Heaven at the Jade Palace";
  • —the "King of Heaven" or "Monarch of Heaven".
  • —the "Duke of Heaven" or "General of Heaven";
  • —the "Prince of Heaven" or "Lord of Heaven";
  • —the "Heavenly Venerable", also a title for high gods in Taoist theologies;
  • —the "God of Heaven", interpreted in the as "the being that gives birth to all things";
  • —"God the August", attested in ;
  • )—the "Olden Heavenly Father".
Attributes of the supreme God of Heaven include:
  • —"Way of Heaven"; it is the God's will of power, which decides the development of things: The Book of Historical Documents says that "the Way of Heaven is to bless the good, and make the bad miserable". It is also used to refer to Xiantiandao and is the name of some religious traditions within it; and it is used in many philosophical and religious contexts in the Sinosphere;
  • —"Mandate of Heaven", defining the destiny of things;
  • —"Decree of Heaven", the same concept of destiny but implying an active decision;
  • —"Under Heaven"; means creation, an ongoing process generated by the supreme God.