1

The Chinese-Jesuit metaphysical debate about Ultimacy

Feng-Chuan Pan

Department of East Asian Studies

National Taiwan Normal University

This paper will examine one of the main themes in the Rites Controversy: the

Chinese name for Deus and the Chinese views on Ultimacy. A profound disagreement

between Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) and Niccolò Longobardo (1565-1655) had led to

the Jiading（嘉定） conference of 1628 that forbade the use of the ancient terms of Tian

and Shangdi for God. But how did the Chinese react to it? Did the Jiading interdict on

Tian and Shangdi resolve the problem, or rather create new ones? Supervised by

Longobardo, Giulio Aleni (1582-1649) reformulated the argument on the existence of

God in his influential book Wanwu zhenyuan (萬物真原, “The True Origin of the

Ten-Thousands Things”) in the same year of 1628. Starting from the dispute between

Ricci and Longobardo,1 and Aleni's attempt to mediate between them, I want to bring in

the Chinese reactions to the proposals of the Jesuits, as their views should be taken into

account, wherever the archival data and related research are available. For that purpose, I

juxtapose the refutations by anti-Jesuit literati, as well as their main source of reference,

the Xingli daquan (性理大全, “The Complete Collections of the Doctrines on

Nature and Principle”, 1415), 2 a collection of Confucian texts, used in imperial

examinations during the Ming Dynasty, and also serving as the main reference for

Longobardo.

1. Controversy over the terms for the Ultimate

As early as 1603, in his Tianzhu shiyi (天主實義, “The True Meaning of the

Lord of Heaven”), Ricci referred to the ancient Confucian Classics as he claimed that

*

1 Given the numerous publications on Ricci and his Tianzhu shiyi, I will mainly focus on the

disagreement between Ricci and Longobardo. For details of Ricci’s arguments, see Ricci, Tianzhu shiyi,

translated, with introduction and notes by Douglas Lancashire and Peter Hu Kuo-chen, The True

Meaning of the Lord of Heaven. (Henceforth: Lancashire)

2 Hu Guang 胡廣, Xingli daquan , vol. 34, p.18. (Henceforth: Xingli daquan ). This book was one of

the three textbooks promulgated by Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty. The other two were Sishu

daquan 四書大全, “The Complete Collections of the Four Books”) and Wujing daquan (五經大全,

“The Complete Collections of the Five Classics”), which will not be used here.

2

“The one we call Tianzhu is the one called Shangdi in Chinese.” (吾天主即華言上

帝).3 He valued the terms Shangdi (上帝, “Governor or Emperor on High”) and Di

(帝, “Governor” or “Emperor”) as found in Classics such as the Book of Changes, the

Book of Rites and the Book of Odes4 by stressing that this Shangdi of the ancient

Classics was not to be equated to the Daoist Jade emperor, Buddhist Kong (空,

“emptiness”) and Wu (無, “non-being”), or to Taiji (太極, “Great Ultimacy”) and Li

(理, “the Principle”) in Song-Ming Commentaries.5 Rather he listed this Shangdi as

Tianzhu (天主, “Lord of Heaven”), the Christian God.

The term Shangdi was commonly used in the Shang dynasty (1766-1123

BCE), and Tian was a new term introduced in the Zhou dynasty (1122-221 BCE).6 In

the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE), there were two major Commentaries on these two

terms, which dominated later scholarship and became the orthodoxy of the state. One

was by Master Zhu Xi (朱熹, 1130-1200), who argued that the word Di was to be

understood as signifying Tian (朱註解帝為天) and that the word Tian was to be

understood as the Li (the “Principle”, 解天為理). The other influential masters were

the two brothers Cheng. Cheng Yi (程頤, 1033-1107) said: “when we think in terms

of form we speak of Tian; when we think in terms of exercising control over things

we speak of Di, and when we think in terms of nature we speak of Qian” (以形體謂

天，以主宰謂帝，以性情謂乾).7

In 1594, long before his Tianzhu shiyi was published, Ricci had translated the

Four Books from Chinese into Latin. He believed that many terms and phrases in the

ancient Classics were in harmony with Christian notions such as “the unity of God”

and “the immortality of the soul”.8 Ricci considered the Song-Ming Commentaries of

the ancient terms as corrupted by Buddhism and Daoism. He traced the origin of the

3 Ricci, Tianzhu shiyi, vol. I, p. 20.

4 Ricci, Tianzhu shiyi, vol. I, pp. 20-21.

5 Ricci, Tianzhu shiyi, vol. I, pp. 14-19. Feng Yingjing 馮應京, “Preface to Tianzhu shiyi (1601),” pp.

1-3.

6 For the statistics of the usages of Tian, Di and Shangdi in ancient Classics, see Nicolas Standaert,

The Fascinating God (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1995), pp. 85-90, 103-107, 117,

123.

7 Ricci, Tianzhu shiyi, vol. I, pp. 20b-21, see the English translation in Lancashire, p. 126-127. The

word Qian means “the first” “the origin” literally. It was often used with connection to Kun (坤) to

denote Heaven and Earth, namely the world.

8 Lancashire and Hu, “Translators’ Introduction to The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven,” pp.

14-15.

3

terms to the ancient Classics and provided a new interpretation of them. Thus, the

ancients’ terms were distinguished from the Song-Ming commentators. On the basis

of this distinction between the ancient and the Song-Ming Confucian traditions, Ricci

argued that Taiji was not identical to Shangdi because the former term did not appear

in the ancient Classics. He distinguished the teaching of Shangdi in ancient times

from the discussions of Taiji among his contemporary Confucians. He accepted the

former and rejected the latter, regarding it as a later invention. In the view of Ricci,

the theory of Taiji was based on symbols representing yang and yin, as well as on the

five elements offering the interpretation of how the world was made. He regarded this

theory as being influenced by Buddhism and Daoism, and as empty symbols without

any ground which were veiled by concepts such as Li, qi and Taiji of the Song-Ming

Commentaries.9 Taiji could not be the true reality and was not able to produce heaven

and earth. In his view, only Shangdi could be seen as the origin of the world, and this

was what he called Tianzhu, the Christian God.

Different from Ricci, who equated Shangdi in ancient Chinese classics to the

Christian God, and who made a distinction between the ancient Confucians and his

contemporary ones, Longobardo argued that both the ancient and the contemporary

Confucians were "atheists" 10 who believed in "only one material substance in

different degrees",11 rather than any spiritual substance. After having examined the

Commentaries in Xingli daquan and having consulted various Chinese scholars, he

concluded that the Song-Ming Commentaries were atheistic because of their

materialistic theories. The ancients were also atheistic since the true meaning of the

ancient texts was revealed by the commentators. The different attitudes towards the

Song-Ming Commentaries between Ricci and Longobardo resulted in their conflict of

interpretations of Chinese traditions, especially the ancient one. These different

hermeneutics in the Jesuits’ understandings of various traditions of Chinese thought

had been at work from the beginning of their mission in China. In later sections, we

9 Ricci, Tianzhu shiyi, vol. I, pp.14b-15a, Lancashire, p. 107.

10 Longobardo, Traité, p. 84. Gernet has also compared part of the discussions between Longobardo

and Leibniz, see Jacques Gernet, "Leibniz on a Seminal Chinese Concept versus the Missionary

Longobardo," in Wenchao Li and Hans Poser (eds.), Das Neueste Ü ber China: G. W. Leibnizens

Novissima Sinica von 1697 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2000), pp. 203-209. However, I will use the French text

in this dissertation.

11 Longobardo, Traité, section 10 under the heading "Que les Chinois n'ont point connu de Substance

Spirituelle, distincte de la materelle, mais une seule substance materielle en differens degrez", in Traité,

p. 47.

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shall see the complexity in more detail when Aleni tried to balance Ricci’s and

Longobardo’s approaches through his exchanges with Fujian literati.

In line with his understanding of the Song-Ming Confucian doctrines,

Longobardo argued that the Chinese knew nothing of “an infinite force that had the

power to pull all things from nothingness”,12 or “a spiritual substance distinct from

the material, such as there are God, Angels and the rational soul.”13 What the Chinese

knew, he claimed, was only “a universal, immense and infinite Substance from which

has emanated the Tai-Kie, or the primordial air, that contains in itself this same

universal substance and that, by taking different qualities or accidents once by moving,

then by resting, becomes the immediate matter of all things.” 14 Longobardo’s

interpretation of the Confucian Li was:

They call it Li, by which they mean the Being, Substance, and Entity of

things; as they figure that there exists one infinite, eternal, uncreated,

incorruptible Substance, without origin and without end. This Substance,

according to them, is not only the physical principle of Heaven, Earth, and

other bodily things; but also the moral source of the virtues, habits and

other spiritual things; from this sprung that famous Latin axiom, Omnia

sunt unum.15

After consultations with a Chinese scholar, he concluded that the Chinese “follow all

the absurdities our Europeans deduce from the principle, Toutes choses sont un (all

things are one) until they come to downright atheism in the end.”16

He fiercely attacked the Confucian axiom Wanwu yiti (萬物一體, “all things

are one”), which was identified with the Latin axiom of Omnia sunt unum. But

12 Longobardo, Traité, p. 32: “...une puissance infinie, qui eût le pouvoir de tirer toutes choses de

rien...”.

13 Longobardo, Traité, p. 47: “[…] il est constant que les Chinois n'ont point connu de substance

spirituelle distincte de la materielle, comme sont Dieu, les Anges, & l'Ame raisonnable […]”.

14 Ibid.

15 Longobardo, Traité, p. 74: “Cette Substance, selon eux, n'est pas seulement le principe physique du

Ciel, de la Terre, & des autres choses corporelles; mais encore le principe moral des vertus, des

habitudes & des autres choses spirituelles, d'où a pris naissance ce fameux axiome Latin, Omnia sunt

unum”.

16 Longobardo, Traité, p. 96: “Il dit dans la Préface, que toutes choses sont tellement une même

substance, qui est la Li, qu’il n’y a nulle autre difference entre elles, que la figure exterieure & les

qualities accidentelles; d’où s’ensuivent toutes le absurditez que le Européens ont fait voir, en

consequence du principle, Toutes choses sont un; principle qui conduit à l’atheïsme.”

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Longobardo’s reading of Li as an entity was incorrect because his understanding of

the Ultimate as a substance whereas the Confucians did not share the same

understanding of it. I will explain this later. Longobardo suspected that some

Europeans might equate this Li to the Christian God because of the attributes quoted

above, such as “infinite, eternal, uncreated, incorruptible Substance, without origin

and without end” which the Chinese applied to Li since these are the “qualities and

perfections which can only belong to God.”17 But he saw this as “hidden poison”,

because he understood Li as nothing but the “primary matter” (元質), which was

regarded as the first creation of God’s work.18 Different from Ricci’s interpretation of

Li as “accident”, he ‘materialized’ Taiji, Li and qi by relating them to the scholastic

concept of prime matter. On the basis of this equation of Taiji as prime matter, he

concluded that the Chinese tradition as a whole was “atheist”.

The other issue raised by Longobardo was the non-personal aspect of the

Chinese Shangdi. Descriptions of the Lord of Heaven, as introduced by the Jesuits,

spoke of “a living, intelligent substance, without beginning, without end, which had

created all things and which governed from Heaven like the King in his Palace

governs his entire Kingdom”.19 Since this differed from the descriptions of Shangdi

in the ancient Classics, he consulted a scholar who told him that this Shangdi was

[…] not truly like a living man, seated in Heaven, but is only the power

that rules, which governs Heaven, that is in all things and in ourselves; so

that we can say that our heart is a same thing as Tien-Cheu and Xangti.20

On the basis of this non-personal understanding of Shangdi provided by a Chinese

scholar, Longobardo refuted Ricci’s equation of Shangdi to God, arguing that, if,

according to the Song-Ming Commentaries, Shangdi was the same as Taiji, Tian and

Li, it could be only material, not spiritual, because the latter concepts were merely

17 Longobardo, Traité, p. 78.

18 Ibid.

19 Underline Leibniz’s (Henceforth: Underline his). See Longobardo, Traité, p. 86: “Nous répondîmes,

que nous entendions une substance vivante, intelligente, sans principe, sans fin, qui avoit crée toutes

choses, & qui du Ciel les gouvernoit, comme le Roi dans son Palais gouverne tout son Roïaume”.

20 Ibid.: “…n'est pas veritablement comme un homme vivant, assis dans le Ciel; mais qu'il est

seulement la vertu qui domine, qui gouverne le ciel, qui est en toutes choses, & en nous-mêmes; &

qu'ainsi nous pouvons dire que nôtre coeur est une même chose que Tien-Cheu & Xangti”, Italics and

underlines his. The spelling of the two terms are different in his text: Tien-Cheu is Tianzhu and Xangti

is Shangdi.

6

material. Consequently, the Christian doctrine of the Triune God, with three persons

and one substance should be transliterated by Latin terms and be transliterated as

follows: Deus as Dousi (陡斯) and the three persons of Trinity as Badele (罷德肋,

Pater), Feilue (費略, Filius) and Sibiliduosanduo (斯彼利多三多, Spiritus Santus),

respectively. He introduced the doctrine of Trinity in his Chinese book, Linghun daoti

shuo (靈魂道體說, 1636), in which he explained that the three persons (位) of Deus

were of one substance (三位共是一體).21 With the same logic, he argued that the

human soul also possessed three abilities: memory, intelligence, and desire. These

newly invented terms transliterated from Latin, actually meant nothing and were alien

to Chinese. This issue of presenting Deus/Tian as a person was one of the main

themes of debate between the Jesuits and Chinese scholars. I will come back to it in

the next section when dealing with their debate on the Incarnation.

At the time of the Jiading conference, Aleni worked under Longobardo’s

supervision and got in an awkward situation, as the major Jesuit in Fujian, the

province where the debates on Chinese rites started shortly after the conference. His

book Wanwu zhenyuan eventually became as influential as Ricci’ Tianzhu shiyi. It

was published in the year of the Jiading conference, when the Jesuits agreed to

abandon Ricci’s equation of Shangdi to God. Wanwu zhenyuan was a cautious

composition. Following Longobardo’s opposition to Ricci’s approach Aleni avoided

the ancient terms of Tian and Shangdi and was quite straightforward in introducing

the Thomist proofs of God to the Chinese audience. His book was highly praised by

Longobardo and Rui de Figueiredo (1594-1642). Jean-François Foucquet (1665-1741)

called it “the next most influential book” for the China mission after Ricci’ Tianzhu

shiyi.22 It was often reprinted even after the prohibition of Chinese Rites and

terminology had been promulgated by Maigrot in 1693 in Fujian, at least in 1694,

1791, 1906, and 1924.23 Wanwu zhenyuan was also the book that Aleni submitted to

the prime minister Ye Xianggao before their conversation at Sanshan in 1627.

21 Longobardo, Linghun daoti shuo, pp. 7b-10.

22 See Jean-François Foucquet’s letter to the Duc of de la Force, November 26, 1702,” quoted in John

W. Witek, S. J., “Principles of Scholasticism in China: A Comparison of Giulio Aleni’s Wanwu

zhenyuan with Matteo Ricci’s Tianzhu shiyi,” in Scholar from the West, pp. 276, 286-288. Thanks C.

von Collani’s correction in her books review of my PhD dissertation, published in Exchange 36 (2007),

pp. 220-221.

23 Claudia von Collani, “Franciso Luján’s ‘Annotations’ in Guilio Aleni’s Wanwu zhenyuan,” in

Scholar from the West, pp. 292.

7

2. A threefold antithesis about Ultimacy facing Aleni and southern

Chinese literati

The following questions are of interest. As the ancient terms of Shangdi and Tian had

been forbidden in the Jiading conference of 1628, how did Aleni reformulate his

argument? Did his reformulation resolve the tension or create new problems? Given

Longobardo’s judgement that the whole Chinese tradition was materialistic and

atheistic, how would Aleni approach the policy of accommodation in Fujian? How

did the Chinese receive his arguments? In studying how Aleni reformulated the

issues and how the Chinese reacted to his arguments in particular and to the Jesuits’

views in general, I propose three sets of concepts opposing the Jesuits and the

Chinese that can be treated as a basic antithesis in a cluster of three arguments, the

one evoking the other. The basic question behind the three sets of concepts is:

Whether to speak of an outside God who ‘produces’ the world and reveals himself in

words OR of the inside Tian that ‘gives birth’ to the world and reveals itself in deeds?

The question marks in each of the following sections imply a hint that these two

concepts need not be considered mutually exclusive. On both sides when the Jesuits

and the Chinese literati, especially the anti-Jesuit literati, were debating, there were

two extremes. However, I would like to consider a possible integration of the two

traditions..

2.1. Ultimacy outside or inside?

The question of “outside or inside” undergirded the debates on the origins of the

world between the Jesuits and the Chinese. The Jesuits insisted on a “Lord of

Heaven” standing ‘outside’ the Heaven, whereas the Confucian spoke of an immanent

but transcendent origin of all beings. Although both Christianity and Confucianism

consist of discussions on the tension between the immanent and the transcendent, in

the Jesuit-Chinese debate, the difference on this point between the two traditions was

greatly stressed. The character of God’s transcendence was one-sidedly portrayed as

‘outside’, whereas the Confucian idea of the immanent and transcendent origin was

understood as ‘inside’. The Jesuits used the analogy of the Architect to oppose their

Confucian interlocutors who believed the transcendent origin to be immanent in the

world and united with the world. The question, thus, became a conflict between

‘outside or inside’. In his preface to Wanwu zhenyuan Aleni notes:

8

When one finds contradicting interpretations of the same thing, there must

be a Principle (理, Li) for us to determine which one is true since not all

interpretations can be true. This is just as what is required to weigh the

weight of a thing by a scale, or to measure the purity of gold by the purest

gold standard. Similarly, there must be a principle for determining the truth

of the world. […] In your tradition, there are different interpretations of the

origin of Heaven and Earth, such as Li, qi (氣, “material force”) and zhuzai

(主宰, “Governor”). As for the meaning of “governor”, there are even more

different theories, which are really confusing. […] This question of the

origin of the world is crucial. [...] It needs to be investigated by reason (理,

li). For reason is the universal master (公師, gongshi) of all human beings.

The people from the East and the West share the same reason although their

cultures and customs are different.24

In this passage, Aleni stressed the existence of a scale or criterion ‘outside the world’

before advancing the basic argument of his book and arriving at his conclusion of the

existence of a creator outside the world. Because the Christian doctrine about the

origin of the world was so different from that of Confucianism, Aleni pressed for a

criterion to determine the true one.

In his view, this criterion was reason or li, regarded as the common

possession of all human beings, which enabled him to apply scholastic theology,

especially Thomas Aquinas’ “the Five Ways” of rationally demonstrating the

existence of God. His key presupposition was: “All things in the world have a

beginning.”25 This concept, which was new to the Chinese and was later extended to

the debate about the idea of time, resulted in refutation of the five main26 concepts of

24 Aleni, “Preface to Wanwu zhenyuan,” in Xu Zongze, MingQingjian yesuhuishi yizhu tiyao, pp.

173-174. The Chinese original of the quotation is as follows: “凡論一事而有相反之說，既不能具真，

必有一確法以決之，如論物之輕重，必須定以權衡，如辨金之真偽，必須定以鏐石，論道亦然……

所謂天地有所以生者，又或曰理、曰氣、曰主宰。窮究主宰之說又各議論不一，以至人心茫然……

此天地間一大事……必須逐端以理論之。理者，人類之公師，東海西海之人，異地同天，異文同

理，莫能脫於公師之教焉。”

25 This is the title of Wanwu zhenyuan’s first chapter: 論萬物皆有始.

26 Aleni composed four refutations with the following chapter titles: 人物不能自生 (“human beings

and things in the world are not able to emerge themselves”), 天地不能自生人物 (“Heaven and Earth

are not able to give birth of human beings and things”), 元氣不能自分天地 (“The prime material

9

Song-Ming Confucianism. These are “human and things” (人物, Renwu), “Heaven

and Earth” (天地, Tiandi), “Material force” (氣, qi ), “Principle” (理, Li) and “Great

Ultimacy” (太極, Taiji) and they are rejected one after the other in order to highlight

the Christian God alone as the true origin and governor of the world. Aleni’s reason

for refuting them was that the reality they signified all had a beginning. Therefore, in

Aleni’s view, they could not be the true origin of all things which should have no

beginning.

After this rejection of the main concepts of the Confucian tradition, Aleni

argued for the existence of a producer and governor, stating that the Tianzhu he

preached was the true origin of the world, of both Heaven and Earth, and that all

things in the world came from “the origin without origin” or “the beginner without

beginning” (無原之原). He insisted that the teaching of this Lord of Heaven is the

only true teaching. In his last chapter entitled: “Tianzhu is ‘the beginner without

beginning’ of all things in the world”, Aleni echoed the starting point of the book: “all

things have a beginning”. He started his argument from the phenomena of the world,

he thus projected the book to “the beginner outside the world”. This approach went a

step further beyond the Song-Ming Confucian’s gewu qiongli (格物窮理 , “to

investigate all things in order to understand the Li thoroughly”), by pointing out that

after gewu qiongli, one should go on to discover this Lord of Heaven who was outside

all things and set up this Li in all things. At this point, it is important to recall the

scholastic background of Aleni and most Jesuits, and to compare to the Chinese views,

both pro and anti Jesuit.

The Jesuit application of Aquinas and of Aristotelian theories

The Jesuit’s central idea was that the world has a beginning and an end. On the basis

of this linear thinking, Aleni’s argument progressed from the “beginning” of the

world in chapter one to the theory in his final chapter about the “origin without

origin”. In his attempt to keep alive the policy of accommodation he worked out an

application of Aquinas’ proofs of God, especially “the Five Ways.”27 The dominance

of Aquinas’ approach was clearly visible in the following statement stated by Aleni:

force is not possible to be divided into Heaven and Earth”), 理不能造物 (“Principle can not create

things of the world”).

27 The Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas appears in the Part I, Question 2, Article 3 of Aquinas' Summa

10

When one wants to trace the origin of the world, it is not possible to go

back infinitely. Rather, there must be a final ultimate. The first, earliest,

the most prior who is not born by any thing else (無所從生者) is precisely

the one who I say to you is the Lord of Heaven, the Producer (造物者) of

the world.28

In this key passage, Aleni’ words “it is not possible to go back infinitely” reflect the

Thomist proofs of God, of which this book frequently applies the first, the second and

the fifth ways, whereas the third and fourth ways seem less clear in this book.29

Let us start our investigation from Aleni’s arguments in this book. The

first way of Aquinas “Proof from Motion and Change” clearly states that the

chain of motion “can not go on to infinity” and thus presupposes God as the first

mover, appears clearly in the title of this book’s first chapter: “ All things in the

world have a beginning.” Aleni explained:

In the very beginning of the creation of heaven, its movement was from the

East to the West, one circle per day, the same as we can observe today. The

next day, the circle finished and started a new circle, which was the

beginning of another day. Therefore, if we trace the very first day of the

movement by following this same logic, we will find a moment when there

was no Heaven, Earth, or movement---a moment when nothing was born.

Can we not say then that was the beginning of Heaven and Earth?30

Theologiae. See T. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican

Province (New York: Christian Classics, 1948), vol. I, pp. 13-14. Aquinas’ Summa Theologica had

been partially translated into Chinese in late Ming China under the title of Chaoxing xueyao (超性學要,

“A Summary of the Study of the Supernatural”) by L. Buglio (利類思, 1606-1682) and Gabriel de

Magalhàes (安文思, 1609-1677) during 1654-1678 in Bibliothèque Nationale Paris, Chinese Archives,

Courant, 6906-6907. These five ways can be found in Chaoxing xueyao, vol. 1, pp. 16-19: “萬物有一

無元之有，所謂天主。據理推證，約有五端：一、以物動證……二、以物之作所以然證……三、

以固然與非固然之物證……四、以物之不等證……五、凡宇內無知之物，形有所向，向有所得，

終古如此是豈偶然？”.

28 Aleni, Wanwu zhenyuan, p. 24a: “遞推原本，既不可至無窮，必有所止極，則最先、最初、無

所從生者，乃吾所謂天主造物者也”.

29 The third is the “Proof from the Contingency of Beings” and the fourth is “Proof from the Degrees

of Perfection of Beings”. The reason why Aleni did not use the two ways needs further investigation.

30 Aleni, Wanwu zhenyuan, p. 2: “蓋天一開闢就能運動，既運動，必如今日自東而西，一日一週，

明日復還本方，既還本方即一日之始也，即此推之，一日之前直至于無天可動，無地可載，無物

可生，豈不為天地之所始乎？”

11

This proof implies that the world had a beginning when nothing existed and that,

before the momentum initiated by the first mover, no movement was possible. Only

when the first mover activated it, could all movement of the world be started.

Aquinas’ second way of “Proof by Efficient Cause” is applied in the

following way: “The bearer (生, sheng) must be prior to the things which were born”.

In Aleni’s view, as nothing was born by itself, every thing could be given birth only

by someone else that had been existing earlier than the thing itself. Therefore, he

continued, since “Heaven is not able to bear itself, neither Earth, any human being or

anything in the world” from the chain of generating relationship, can be deduced a

first bearer who initiated this chain.31 We can see that “the efficient cause” of

Aquinas is accommodated to Confucian term of generating (sheng, “giving birth”), a

term that was applied to the Christian concept of creation. As the third and fourth

ways are not found in this book, let us proceed to the fifth way “Proof from the Final

Cause”. We read Aleni’s statement as follows:

When we see those unconscious beings which always follow their nature

or principle, we can conclude that there must be someone who is

conscious and most intelligent, ordering and directing them. […] Now we

see Heaven, which is unconscious […] but always moves in circles. It

marks for us the time day after day, year after year. Since Heaven and

Earth take care of the whole evolution of things (生化, shenghua) in the

world, but are not conscious of their working, how can we deny that the

most intelligent one exists who makes all these unconscious beings work

in order? […] Therefore, we must say that there is someone who sets up

the nature and principle in all things thereby enabling them to work in

order.32

In this Thomist line, Aleni reworded the concepts Li, Qi and Taiji in the Confucian

tradition. The Li in all things, so he argued, was neither conscious nor intelligent, but

at most the principle installed by the producer of the world. Following Ricci’s view,

Aleni interpreted Li as an accident (依賴者), on the same level as the scale of law (法

31 Aleni, Wanwu zhenyuan, p. 5.

32 Aleni, Wanwu zhenyuan, p. 17: “凡無心之物，自不知舉動，設若一舉一動悉中其法，必有有心

而最靈名者以運動之……今天地無心而時時運行……遞報時刻，日日如此，歲歲如此，又照臨生

化而自不知其動，不知其生化，豈無有靈明者運旋而使之然？……必先有定其性之所以然，然後

能各因其性而為自然也。”

12

度) and the Five Virtues and Seven Sentiments (五德七情), which come into

existence only by combining with a substance.33 Aleni explained that the term

shenghua (生化, “to bear and transform”) may refer to the evolution of all things in

the world, while another term huasheng (化生, literally: “to transform and to bear”) is

to be used to denote the concept of creation. Aleni argued that only the one who had

consciousness and was perfect and most intelligence was able to “huasheng” all

things in the world. Thus, the Confucians’ intelligent Li was reduced to a simply

principle or a natural rule.

While Aleni’s argument on Li as an accident came from Ricci, his view of

Taiji as the prime matter or primordial air came from Longobardo’s treatise of

Chinese religion. Although Ricci’s Tianzhu shiyi described such concepts as ti and

Taiji as accidents which depended on other things for their existence, it made no

direct equation to prime matter. Aleni, however, followed Longobardo’s interpretation

of Li as prime matter in scholastic philosophy and his ‘materialization’ of the

Confucian tradition. Here we should recall that the Aristotelian theory of four causes

had first been applied by Ricci in his pivotal book Tianzhu shiyi. On this point Aleni

followed Ricci, who had written:

When we attempt to discuss why things are as they are, we find that there

are four causes. […] They are the active cause, the formal cause, the

material cause and the final cause. The active cause is that which makes a

thing to be. The formal cause gives form to a thing and places it in its own

class, thereby distinguishing it from other classes of things. The material

cause is the original material of a thing which is given form. The final

cause determines the end and the purpose of a thing. These causes can

been seen in every event and in every piece of work. […] There is nothing

in the world which does not combine within itself these four causes. Of

these four, the formal cause and the material cause, as found in

phenomena, are internal principles of phenomena or, if one wishes to state

it in that way, are the yin (negative) and yang (positive) principles. The

active cause and final cause lie outside phenomena and exist prior to

phenomena, and therefore cannot be said to be internal principles of

phenomena. The Lord of Heaven we speak of is the reason for things

33 Aleni, Wanwu zhenyuan, pp. 12-15.

13

being as they are, and we refer to Him only as the active and final cause.

Therefore, it is clear that there must exist Someone who creates the

world.34

Ricci’s four causes: material cause (質), formal cause (模), active cause (造) and final

cause (為), were the common translation of Aristotle’s theory of four causes. He also

attempted to distinguish all things into two categories: substance (自立者) and

accident (倚賴物),35 but he refuted the concept of Li, because it was spoken of in two

ways: either as residing in the minds of men, or as found in things. Given these two

ways of speaking about this principle, Ricci argued that it was an accident and could

not be the origin of all things. He concluded that Li did not exist before the beginning

of the world, precisely because it could be found only together with the things in the

world and the minds of human beings. Before the beginning of the world, there was

nothing for Li to rely or depend on. If Li was only an accident, it could not stand on its

own; and if there were no substances, such as things or human beings for them to rely

on, all accidents were void and non-existent. Thus he concluded that Li could not be

the origin of the world.36

But Aleni, following Longobardo, went further by stressing the material side

of Li, which became the ‘form’ of a thing. Similarly, besides the Li, another

Confucian concept qi was also refuted as material, and thus removed from the list of

candidates for the origin of the world. Aleni stated,

All producers must be outside the thing they produce. For instance, a

carpenter first has to take other material as components for the device he

plans to make. This carpenter is outside of these devices. Now the prime

qi (元氣, yuanqi) in your tradition, you say, is fully inside rather than

outside the myriad things of the world. Thus it can be either the material

or formal cause, but not the active and the final cause of the world.37

34 Lancashire, pp. 85-86. See also Aleni, Wanwu zhenyuan, pp. 9b-10a.

35 Aleni also pointed out these two categories, see Wanwu zhenyuan, p. 9b.

36 Ricci, Tianzhu shiyi, vol. I, p. 16.

37 Italics mine, see Aleni, Wanwu zhenyuan, p. 10b: “又凡造物者必在物體之外，如工匠造物必不分

其體為器皿，須以他物造之，其工匠固在他物之外也，今元氣渾在物物之中以成萬物，是元氣為

物體而不在外，僅可為質者、模者而不可為造者、為者也。”

14

The qi (material force) Aleni interpreted as the prime air that filled everything ‘inside’

of the world and he contrasted the inside and the outside so as to highlight the Lord of

Heaven as distinct from the world. The Aristotelian theory of four causes was also

applied in his statement that qi was at most the material or the formal cause, which

was as raw material for the outside Creator, Lord of Heaven. Applying this theory of

four causes, he argued that the active cause must be ‘outside’. Since the prime qi is

inside, it is not the Creator of all things. But this argument was not without

deficiencies.

Along similar lines also a third Confucian concept was refuted in Wanwu

zhenyuan, namely Taiji. Aleni saw this as no different from Li and/or qi, neither of

them being conscious or intelligent. In his view, Taiji was simply part of the material

world, and thus incapable of governing the changes and the evolution of the world.38

On the basis of Aristotle’s hylomorphism, implied in Longobardo’s approach, Aleni

too interpreted Taiji as “prime matter” (原質, yuanzhi), and therefore, as of the same

substance as the material things (與物同體).39 Thus, neither Taiji, nor Li or qi could

be the Creator of the world. His four reasons for this conclusion were: (1) prime

matter had a beginning whereas the Creator had not; (2) prime matter was an accident

which could not subsist on its own; (3) prime matter was not omnipresent; (4) prime

matter was the foundation only for the material not for the spiritual.40

As stated, Aleni was working under the supervision of Longobardo and his

Wanwu zhengyuan was written after Longobardo voiced his opposition to Ricci’s

equation of Tian and Shangdi with God and his positive attitude toward the Chinese

ancient Classics. This clearly directed Aleni’s arguments away from the ancients

toward the Song-Ming Confucian tradition. He followed Longobardo’s interpretation

which identified Taiji and Li as the prime matter of the West and applied the Five

38 Aleni, Sanshan lunxueji (三山論學記, “The Learned Conversation at Sanshan”, 1627), p. 5 ,

reprinted in Wu, Xianxain (ed.) Tianzhujiao dongchuanwenxianxubian 天主教東傳文獻續編 (Taipei:

Xueshenshuju, 1966), vol. one.

39 Aleni, Sanshan lunxueji, p. 5. His understanding of ti (體, substance) and xing (性, nature) was a

big issue. Longobardo’s criticism to the Daoti (道體, the substance of Dao) might have had an impact

on him.

40 We find also the same argument in his conversation with Fujian literati. See Li Jiubiao,

Kouduorichao (1630-1630), vol. 4, p.3. He states, “儒者之解太極，不出理氣二字。則貴邦所謂太極

似敝邦所謂元質也。元質不過造物主化成天地之材料，不過天地四所以然之一端，安得為主，又

安得而祭之事之也哉？”

15

Ways of Aquinas. No mention of the ancients was made in his book on the concept of

the Lord of Heaven as the origin of the myriad things.

The Chinese reaction to the Jesuits’ metaphysics

The Jesuits’ attempts to relate to the Chinese view of Ultimacy was bound to provoke

hostile reactions, which were mainly based on Song-Ming Confucianism. One of the

main sources of their thought is Xingli daquan . Concerning the origin of the world,

the following passage from the chapter Taiji tushuo (太極圖說, “An illustration and

explanation of Taiji”)41 in Xingli daquan , we read the following description:

Without ultimate, therefore Great Ultimacy (無極而太極, Wuji er Taiji,

without end, therefore, great end). Great Ultimacy generates yang (male)

through movement. When its activity reaches its limit, it becomes tranquility.

Through tranquility Great Ultimacy generates Yin (female). When

tranquility reaches its limit, activity begins again. So movement and

tranquility alternate and become the root of each other, giving rise to the

distinction of yin and yang, and the two modes are thus established. […] By

the transformation of yang and its union with yin, the Five Agents of Water,

Fire, Wood, Metal, and Earth arise. When these five material forces (qi) are

distributed in harmonious order, the four seasons run their course. […]

When the reality of Non-ultimate (無極之真) and the essence of yin, yang

and the Five Agents (二五之精) come into mysterious union, integration

ensues. Qian (Heaven) constitutes the male element, and kun (Earth) the

female element. The interaction of these two material forces engenders and

transforms the myriad things. The myriad things born and reborn

(sheng-sheng, 生生), give rise to an unending transformation.42

From this follows that the transcendent Taiji was understood as immanent in the

world. There was no discussion in the Confucian texts concerning a timeless

41 This contains one chapter of Xingli daquan .

42 Different from most of philosophers who translate the Chinese term 太極 as “the Great Ultimate”,

I rather translate it as Great Ultimacy, as it can not be seen as a substance according to Confucian

thought. Hu Guang, Xingli daquan , vol. 1, pp. 13-33: “無極而太極……太極動而生陽，動極而靜，

靜而生陰，靜極復動，互為其根……陽變陰合而生水火木金土，五氣順佈，四時行焉……無極之

真，二五之精，妙合而凝，乾道成男，坤道成女，二氣交感，化生萬物，萬物生生而變化無窮。”

16

world before the beginning of the world. The power of generation and

transformation was innate in everything of the world. The process of

transformation moved automatically. The potential of all movement and evolution

was already rooted in Taiji. There was no need for an ‘outside’ beginner and

mover to activate this process. The operation of the two polars of yin and yang,

i.e., female and male, activated the movement of the generation circularly.

To refute the Jesuits’ criticism of Taiji, the anti-Jesuit Confucian Zhong

Shicheng (鍾始聲), who was also a Buddhist master, wrote his twofold critique

called Pixieji (闢邪集, “Two Essays for Countering Heterodoxy”, 1643). His

statement runs as follows,

Did Confucius not say that ‘change’ (yi, 易) itself was the Great Ultimacy

which gave birth to liangyi (兩儀 the ‘two appearances’, viz. yin and yang)?

It is because of this that ‘change’ is the nature of intelligence and

consciousness. It is motionless and extremely quiet. Simply through its inner

sense (感而遂通, gan er sui tong), it activates and governs all changes and

evolution (萬化, wanhua) in the world without thoughts and actions (無思

無為, wu si wu wei).43

The phrase “through its inner sense” indicated that the work of evolution was not

initiated by an outsider, but rather by the innate nature or spontaneity of the myriad

things in the world. According to the words of Cheng Hao (程顥, 1032-1085), this

“through its inner sense” meant that it possessed the whole inherent Li (principle,

reason). And because it was “motionless”, it was called extremely quiet. Although it

could be stimulated through the senses, “This stimulation was not from outside.”44

This Taiji was the Li, which was transcendent, but also immanent in each and every

thing of the world. The axiom of Li yi feng shu (理一分殊, the principle is one but

manifested in the myriad things) of Cheng Yi (程頤, 1033-1107) described the

43 Zhong Shisheng, "Tianxue zaizheng (天學再徵, “The Second Inquiry into the Jesuits’ preaching of

the study of Heaven”),” in his Pixieji, p. 8a: “孔子不言「易」有太極，是生兩儀乎？夫「易」即靈

明知覺之本性也，故無思無為，寂然不動，感而遂通，正不必以此主宰萬化。”

44 Xingli daquan , vol. 34, p.18 : “因不動，故言寂然，雖不動，感便通，感非自外也”.

17

relationship of the immanent ultimate with the world.45 Zhu Xi (朱熹, 1130-1200)

used the metaphor of “moon-shadows in the myriad rivers and lakes” to explain that

the principle was immanent in each and every thing as the “inner senses”. In

conclusion, according to Zhong, “change” (Yi, 易) was intelligent consciousness,

which itself is capable of enabling the whole evolution of the world.

The Jesuit idea of a Tianzhu who produced the world from outside was

inconceivable for the Confucians. Zhong pointed out that the Jesuits did not fully

understand the different meanings of Tian in Chinese tradition. He stated:

What we Confucians say about Tian has three levels of meaning: firstly, it

means the blue sky (蒼蒼之天), the variety of heavens, of which we are

unable to see the limits. Secondly, it denotes the one who governs the world

and metes out the reward and punishment. To this we can apply to the term

Shangdi (上帝, “the governor on high”) in our classics such as The Book of

Odes, The Book of Changes and The Book of the Mean. They [the Jesuits]

know only these two meanings. This governor Tian is simply governing but

does not ‘bear’ (生, sheng, “giving birth to”) the world. […] The third

meaning of Tian is the one who is intelligent, without beginning or end, who

is not born by anyone else and will never be extinguished. We call it Tian,

because it is the origin of all things in the world. We also call it ming (命,

“destiny”), because it is ‘the nature (性, xing) conferred by Tian’ as

recorded in The Book of the Mean .46

The three levels of the meaning of Tian quoted by Zhong described different

attributes of Tian. If the third meaning of Tian accorded with Zhong’s understanding,

the Jesuits’ refutation of Confucian thought, by either regarding Tian and Li as

materialistic or as an accident, would be a great mistake. Zhong explained that the

Chinese terms such as Heaven (天, tian), destiny (命, ming), unexpressed Mean (未發

45 Xingli daquan , vol. 26, p. 1 : “朱子曰：伊川說得好，曰理一分殊。合含天地萬物而言，只是一

箇理，即在人則又各自有一箇理。

46 Zhong Shisheng, "Tianxue zaizheng," pp. 3b-4a: “吾儒所謂天者有三：一者望而蒼蒼之天，所謂

昭昭之多，及其無窮者是也；二者統御世間，主善罰惡之天，即《詩》、《易》、《中庸》所稱

上帝是也。彼惟知此而已，此之天帝，但治世而非生世也……三者本有靈明之性，無始無終，不

生不滅；名之為天，此乃天地萬物本原；名之為命，故《中庸》云：天命之謂性。”

18

之中, weifa zhizhong), changes (易, yi), inherent intelligence (良知, liangzi), mind

(心, xin), sincerity (誠, cheng) all referred to the same one, viz. the origin of all things

in the world. The origin is without mood, neither creating nor producing (無造作),

without reward nor punishment (無賞罰), sound nor smell (無聲臭).47

Reflecting on these three levels of meaning, Zhong criticized the Jesuits’ idea

of an outside producer of the world and concluded:

Then this Tianzhu is limited to a certain border (方隅) and boundary (分劑),

and is not able to extend everywhere, being divided (分段) and changing (變

遷). How can one name this limited Lord of Heaven as the one who has no

beginning or end and will be governing the world forever?48

Zhong wondered how, if this Tianzhu were outside of the world and no connection

were possible between Tianzhu and the world, could the former govern the latter? The

Jesuits preached a Lord of Heaven who was so supreme, and standing totally ‘outside’

the world, that this Lord was ‘not inside’. The Jesuits’ Lord of Heaven was therefore

unable to fill in all spaces (盈充, yingchong) and penetrate into all things. By contrast,

if this Lord could fill the world, it could not possibly for it be the Highest (至尊,

zhizun).49

In Zhong’s view, these two concepts of yingchong and zhizun contradicted

each other; and he insisted the Jesuits’ fundamental defect to be their idea of an

outside Lord of Heaven. The Jesuits’ argument about the highest Lord (zhizun) as an

outsider could not be reconciled with the attribute of residing everywhere inside the

world (yingchong). And, since the Jesuits’ highest Lord of Heaven could not be the

insider of the world, it would be unable to govern the world.

Zhong went a step further. From an ethical perspective, he claimed that if the

Jesuits upheld both attributes of the Lord of Heaven: ‘high beyond the world’ and

‘fully within in the world’, it would be a blasphemy against the authority of Heaven to

47 Zhong Shisheng, "Tianxue zaizheng,” p. 4b.

48 Zhong Shisheng, "Tianxue zaizheng," p. 7b: “然則天主有方隅也，有分劑也，原非遍一切也，則

必有分段也，有變遷也，何以無始無終能為萬世主乎？”.

49 Zhong Shisheng, "Tianxue zaizheng," p. 3b : “既無所不盈充，則不但在天堂，亦遍在地獄……

若謂高居天堂，至尊無上，則盈充之義不成，若謂遍一切處，則至尊之體不立。”

19

consider the “body” of this Tianzhu as the Heaven and Earth.50 The Jesuits’ argument

of an outside producer, which resulted in God-world dichotomy, was the vital

weakness of their argument.

Clearly, the key conflict between the Jesuits and the anti-Jesuit literati lay in

the third meaning of Tian. The Jesuits were criticized for not knowing the deepest

meaning of this origin of all things in the world. Ricci took the second meaning of

Tian as a governor into account when he identified God as Shangdi. But Longobardo

and the later Jesuits rejected this identification and emphasized excessively the first

level, namely, the material character of Tian and thus ‘materialized’ the whole

Confucian tradition.

The Jesuits emphasized the concept of transcendence to such an extent that

God became ‘spatially outside’ and ‘chronologically prior to’ the world. The

presupposition of the Jesuits was the Creator-world dichotomy. God’s transcendence

was interpreted as someone ‘outside’ the world on the basis of Aristotelian theory of

four causes. God, as a ‘producer’ or an Architect, must be standing outside the things.

The difference of God and Tian was pushed to the limit during the debates between

the Jesuits and the late Ming Chinese. The Jesuit idea of an ‘outside’ Lord of Heaven

created a gap between this Lord and the world, and restricted this Lord to a place

other than this world. This restriction in a Chinese understanding meant that this Lord

was “limited” and “finite” rather than omnipresent.

2.2. Producing or generating?

In this section, I will discuss how the Jesuits presented the doctrine of creation and

how the Confucians responded to their arguments. As I have pointed out, they

described God as an outside Architect. In this section, we will see that this action of

‘producing’ (造, zao) was portrayed as opposed to the Confucians’ view of the

Heaven-Human relationship which was one of “giving birth”. In spite of this

difference, the Jesuits used Chinese terms that contained both ideas, so that we need

first to clarify the issue of terminology.

50 Zhong Shisheng, "Tianxue zaizheng," pp. 10-11. I agree with Zürcher’s conclusion that the Jesuits

“以其外之” (“because they exteriorize it”) as the greatest difference between the Jesuits and Late Ming

Chinese. See E. Zürcher, “In the Beginning, 17th Century Chinese Reaction to Christian Creationism,”

in Chun-Chieh Huang and Erik Zürcher (eds.), Time and Space in Chinese Culture, (Leiden: Brill,

1995).

20

The Jesuits’ presentation of the concept of creation

One of the terms used by the Jesuits for the idea of creation was huasheng (化生).

The word sheng (生, “birth”, “bear”, “born”) can be a verb, noun or an adjective. The

word hua (化) means “change” or “transformation”, depending on how it is used in

the context. The original meaning of the Chinese term huasheng is close to

transforming birth, and far renewed from the idea of creation out of nothing.

Nonetheless, the Jesuits inserted the Christian concept of creation into this term.

According to Hanyu dacidian (漢語大詞典 , “the Great Dictionary of

Chinese”), in Yijing (易經, “the Book of Changes”), the term huasheng refers to the

fact that things are being nourished and transformed in Heaven and on Earth. In the

philosophy of Song-Ming Confucianism, this term meant that all things in the world

are transformed by the material force (qi), and were all present in one single moment

(因氣…一時具有, 忽然而生). In Buddhism, the term was understood in two ways.

Firstly, it could be seen as one of the four types of birth: oviparity (卵生, luansheng),

viviparity (胎生, taisheng), wet birth (濕生, shisheng) and transforming birth (化生,

huasheng). In this context, huasheng meant the “sudden appearance without any

foundation” (無所依託,無而忽起).51 This Buddhist interpretation was closer to the

concept of “creation from nothing”. But the Jesuit indeed refused all Buddhist ideas

ever since Ricci had criticised the Buddhist influence on Chinese traditions that had

ever affected the language. Secondly, a similar idea of huasheng could be found in the

doctrine of Buddha’s three bodies. There huashen (化身) meant the visible and

touchable physical body of Buddha.52 This idea was close to the Christian Incarnation.

For instance, a Buddhist monk in late Ming, Xingji 行璣, considered Jesus as the

visible body of the Lord of Heaven. 53 As this would pose a challenge to the

uniqueness of the Incarnation, it was controversial when the Jesuit selected the cluster

of sheng and huasheng to translate creation.

51 Cf. Dasheng yizhang, (大乘義章, “The Meaning of Mahayana Doctrine”), vols. 8, 19, quoted in

Hanyu dacidian (漢語大辭典, “Great Dictionary of Chinese Language”). Cf. also Shiyongfoxue cidian

(實用佛學辭典, “Practical Dictionary of Buddhism”) (Taipei: Mile Press, 1984) pp. 212-213、529.

52 Ibid.

53 Xingji, “Chaili ouyan (拆利偶言, “Some Words to Expose the Fraud of Ricci”),” in Fanke pixieji

(翻刻闢邪集, “New Carved Edition of the Collection of Essays for Refuting Heresy”), (Kyoto:

Chinese Press, 1984), vol. II, p. 24a.

21

Another term for creation chosen by the Jesuits was zao (造, “produce”). Aleni

distinguished two viewpoints on creation. From the perspective of the Creator, he

used various terms such as huacheng (化成, “finish by transformation”), zaocheng

(造成, “finish by producing”), and zao (造) to describe the act of creating.54 From the

perspective of the creature, he used shousheng (受生, “to receive life”).55 When he

spoke of the natural development of creatures, he used terms like shenghua (生化,

“birth and transformation”), zisheng (滋生, “propagation”), and disheng wanhua (遞

生萬化, “gradual birth, rebirth, and transformation”).56 The word zao corresponded

to the idea of an outside producer. The various usages of the terminology resulted

from the different interpretations within Chinese philosophy concerning the

development and evolution in and of the world.

Having clarified the terminology, we may now examine how the process of

creation was presented in Wanwu zhenyuan. The way Aleni described Genesis was

clearly conditioned by his knowledge of astronomy at the time. He introduced the

six-days of creation day by day. The cosmos was viewed as a nine-levels concentric

celestial system in which the Earth was in the center. The Heaven of heavens (天堂之

天, tiantang zhitian) where the Lord of Heaven, stood outside the celestial system

which He “produced”. There were three hells in the center of the earth.57 The Lord of

Heaven was both outside the celestial system and penetrating into these hells inside

the earth, as well as everywhere on earth. Before the material world was created,

Heaven, earth, hells and nine degrees of heavenly spirits had been created.58 Apart

from the Lord of Heaven, all had a beginning. Aleni distinguished all that had a

beginning into two categories: one would have an end, whereas the other would not.

Yet, all were finite. For instance, the birds and beasts, grass and trees were regarded

as things with a beginning and an end. The ghosts and spirits as well as the souls of

human beings had a beginning but had no end. The Lord of Heaven had neither

beginning nor end, and was seen as therefore the beginning and the origin of all

54 Aleni, Wanwu zhenyuan, pp. 7-24.

55 Aleni, Wanwu zhenyuan, pp. 4, 9.

56 Aleni, Wanwu zhenyuan, pp. 4-17.

57 Aleni, Wanwu zhenyuan, p. 22.

58 Aleni, Wanwu zhenyuan, p. 21.

22

things.59 Aleni applied “have a beginning” to the things which appeared only after

creation.

The six-day creation is described as recorded in Genesis. He believed that

animals and human beings appeared on earth as adults, in mature form, all at once. In

other words, the first human, first horse and first plant did not go through the process

of insemination, pregnancy and delivery. Here, Aleni followed what Ricci wrote

about the “kinds of beings” (物類之諸宗), believing that the Lord of Heaven created

the first ancestors of all categories. Once the first ancestors had come into existence,

each of them generated their offspring (諸宗自生).60 Only after the first generation of

each species had been created could they propagate according to the natural principle

which had been set up by the will of the Creator, making human beings the most

intelligent of all creatures.61

Chinese unease with the idea of creation

The main theme of debate was the question raised by the presupposition of “Heaven

and Earth have a beginning”, which indicated a ‘linear’ view of time. This provoked

major criticism from Chinese literati, who rather followed a circular concept of time.

Moreover, the question of how much time it took for the world to be made was

another disagreement. Let us first consider a passage in Xingli daquan, after which I

shall examine the Chinese remarks on the Jesuit doctrine of creation.

In Xingli daquan, we read the following commentary by Master Zhu:

There is only one principle that includes the process from Taiji to the birth

of the myriad things in the world (萬物化生). It is not correct to say that one

exists earlier and the other later. Rather, all are interconnected and united

with the one great origin (一個大原). The process from Taiji to all things

born is a process from the substance to its praxis; from the subtlety to the

full manifestation. Activity and tranquillity have no end. Yin and yang have

no beginning (動靜無端，陰陽無始). […]. As soon as the principle is there,

the process is spontaneously activated, in which yang is generated (便會動

59 Ricci, Tianzhu shiyi, vol. I, p. 7a, see also Lancashire, p. 83.

60 Ricci, Tianzhu shiyi, vol. I, p. 7a, Lancashire, p. 83,

61 Aleni, Wanwu zhenyuan, pp. 22-23a.

23

而生陽). As soon as the principle is there, stillness is spontaneously

activated, in which yin is generated. When stillness reaches to its extreme,

movement takes over. When movement reaches its extreme, stillness takes

over. These two flow in circles (循環流轉).62

The phrases “not to say that one exists earlier and the other later” and “flow in

circles” indicated the circular thinking of the Confucian thought system. In this

passage, Taiji was the origin of the process of the generation of all things, which

differs radically from the Jesuits’ linear process: from a beginning to the end. Rather,

it was a process of circles. Master Zhu did not explain why yang was generated as

soon as the principle moved, and why yin was generated as soon as the principle (li)

remained still. Zhu considered this as part of the innate nature and ability of the

principle.

But how are we to interpret the origin as Taiji, without “a beginning” (shi) and

flowing in circles? On the one hand, Taiji was understood as transcendent, on the

other hand, it could be grasped only through the things of the world, and by its

immanence. Being without a space, because it was not material, it was to be

understood only through the material. How could this be? Zhu Xi’s words explain it.

In his view, Taiji was not an entity existing in another location than where the things

of the world resided. It resided in yin and yang as long as it was in them. It resided in

the Five Elements as long as it was in the Five Elements. It resided in the myriad

things of the world as long as it was in each of the myriad things. There was only one

principle, called Taiji.63 The term Taiji was used to describe this Ultimacy which was

so great that there was without ultimate (無極) and was beyond finitude and beyond

human beings’ understanding and description.64 One could investigate it only by

investigating the visible things in the world, since it resided in all things.

In sum, Taiji was the same as the principle, Li, which was fully manifest in the

individual taking shape always in combination with qi.65 The world was generated

62 Xingli daquan , vol. 26, pp. 5-6: “自太極至萬物化生，只是一箇道理包括，非是先有此而後有

彼，但統是一個大原，由體達用，從微至著，動靜無端，陰陽無始……有此理便會動而生陽，靜

而生陰，靜極復動，動極復靜，循環流轉。”

63 Xingli daquan , vol. 26, p. 5 : “太極非是別為一物，即陰陽而在陰陽，即五行而在五行，即萬物

而在萬物，只是一箇理而已，因其極至故名曰太極”.

64 Xingli daquan , vol. 26, p. 5.

65 I am aware of the disputes between qi monism, li monism and li-qi dualism (by Master Zhu). But I

24

through the operation of Li and qi, flowing and grinding in circles. In the process of

operation, the pure particles were lighter and floated up to become heaven, the turbid

particles were heavier and precipitated down to become earth. The transformation of

the myriad things in the world came about through this operation of Li and qi.66 The

operation was generated naturally in circles in which the movement and stillness took

turns in the process of transformation. This circular thinking was common among all

Confucians.

In reaction to the Jesuits’ doctrine of creation and their linear idea of time by

which they claimed the world had a beginning, the anti-Jesuit Chinese scholar Xu

Dashou interpreted the idea of generating on behalf of Confucians to rectify the

Jesuits’ understanding as follows: “What we Confucians call sheng-sheng (生生,

“birth and rebirth”) means that our nature is all-prevailing and widespread (流行遍滿),

like a loop without beginning or end (如環無端者).”67 The circular thinking was

clearly pointed out by Xu’s interpretation to contrast the Jesuits’ linear thinking

against what was in Xingli daquan. The evolution and changes in all beings of the

cosmos were naturally, “automatically and spontaneously” completed by the

integration of yin and yang, instead of being “produced” and “activated” at a certain

moment in the beginning of the world by an outside Architect. In this framework of

circular thinking, the Confucians rather believed that the world had no such beginning

or end. Xu also asked the following question concerning the order of creation and the

issue of time:

In their [the Jesuits] books, Heaven and Earth, as well as the spirits of the

heavens were all produced by Tianzhu from nothing (自虛空造成) within

six days and nights. This way of creation is much inferior to Qianyuan (乾

元, “the origin”). Qian finished it in one moment leisurely; if [the Jesuits’

Tianzhu] worked so hard for six days and nights, then, which one is

superior?”68

will focus on the passages from Xingli daquan, in which the thought of the Cheng-Zhu school was

orthodox.

66 Xingli daquan , vol. 26, pp. 11-12.

67 Xu Dashou, "Shengchao zuopi,” p. 25 : “夫儒曰生生，此具吾性之流行遍滿，如環無端者言之

也”.

68 Xu Dashou, "Shengchao zuopi,” p.6: “彼籍又曰，天之與地，及與天神皆彼天主以六日六夜內自

25

He argued that one could not distinguish any sequence in this transformation, viz.,

which one comes first and which later, because the work of transformation was

finished in such a short time. Xu’s interpretation of the order of the myriad things in

the world thus coincided with the teaching of Master Zhu.

Another anti-Jesuit scholar, Feiyin Tongrong (費隱通容), who was also a

Buddhist master, refuted the Jesuits’ ideas of huasheng and the outside producer who

was without a beginning and an end as follows: “How is it possible [i.e., it is

unreasonable] that beings in the world are all deficient (缺), limited (間) and mortal if

all were “born” (生) by Tianzhu, who they claim as immortal, omniscient and

omnipotent?” 69 In other words, if all beings were generated from a “thing without a

beginning and an end,” all beings should also be “without a beginning and an end”.

According to his observation in the world, most things were limited, deficient, finite

and mortal. Therefore, he argued, if it were true that the mortal things were brought

forth by the Jesuits’ Lord of Heaven, this Lord must also be limited, deficient, finite

and mortal. Yet, a limited, deficient, finite and mortal Lord could not be the Lord of

Heaven.

In the same vein, Zhong Zhisheng, another anti-Jesuit Buddhist scholar who

wrote in the identity of a Confucian, provided a further criticism in this sense:

According to the principles one can observe in the world, father and son

are always alike, and cause and effect always correspond to each other.

One can observe the phenomena of the world, in which human beings

bear human beings and birds bear birds. Melons will not bear beans, nor

do beans bear melons. The Lord of Heaven must also come into

existence only after a certain point in time, just like all beings.70

According to Zhong, if the Jesuits’ teachings that all things in the world were “born”

(sheng) by the Lord of Heaven were correct, they should only agree that their Tianzhu

虛空造成，如是則不如乾元多矣，乾以不疾而速，彼勞六日六夜，優劣何如也？”.

69 Feiyin Tungrong, Yuandao pixieshuo (原道闢邪說, “Trace the Dao to Refute Heresy”), in Xu

Changzhi 徐昌治 (ed.), Shengchao poxieji, , vol. 8, p.10a : “豈有天主具無始無終，為全智全能，而

獨生物有間、有缺、有滅、有終乎？”.

70 Zhong Shisheng, "Tianxue zaizheng (天學再徵, “The Second Inquiry into Catholicism”)," pp.

15b-16a: “世間之法，父子必相類，因果必相同，現見人決生人，鳥決生鳥，瓜不生豆，豆不生

瓜，人有始無終，天主亦必有始無終矣”.

26

was at most as good and intelligent as human beings, but could not be the origin of the

world because it itself existed only after a certain point in time without being

beginningless.

It is important to note that the Jesuit theory of creation did not make sense to

the Chinese converts either. In Fujian province, the most important mission area of

Aleni, Zhaojia (肇夾 ), a converted scholar from Quanzhou (泉州 ) posed the

following observation:

Recently I read the book Huanyou quan (寰有詮, “An Introduction to the

Cosmos”, 1628), which states that, on the first day, Tianzhu ‘zao’ (造,

“produced”) heavens, earth, water and light.… and on the sixth day,

human beings were born (生) after animals had been made (造). Now, I

read the Creed saying that the omnipotent Tianzhu ‘huacheng’ (化成,

“finished by transformation”) the world all at once. It seems not to agree

with the meaning of the word hua (化, “transformation”) if the work was

finished in six days. The Master (Aleni) says, “No, Tianzhu did not work

from morning to the evening each day. The Lord rather finished the work

altogether at one moment each day (一瞬間一齊具備). The reason why

this process took six days is to reveal the order of creatures and to

encourage human beings to work hard during the six days and to

self-cultivate, and then give thanks to the Lord of Heaven on the seventh

day. This does not contradict the power of the word hua.”71

Zhaojia understood the term hua as bringing something into existence all at once. He

could not understand how the order of the myriad things was distinct, because the

word hua denoted a very short time which could not allow for a distinct order in the

birth of things making it difficult to say which one came earlier and which one later.

71 The only information we have about Zhaojia is found in Kouduo richao. He is one of the Chinese

converts from Quanzhou, Fujian. Li Jiubiao 李九標 (ed.), Kouduo richao, vol. 6, p. 24a. The Chinese

original of the quotation is as follows: “肇夾復問：「近讀《寰有詮》，知天主首日造天地、造水、

造光，次日堅定諸天及造火氣，三日分水土、生草木，四日見日月星之文，五日生鱗介飛翔之物，

六日造百獸之類，後乃生人，今信經言全能天主化成天地，全能所化一時具有，六日後成似于化

字有未合否？」先生曰：「否，天主以六日造成天地萬有，非從晨抵暮經營量度也，不過每日一

瞬間一齊具備，所以必六日後成者，亦以見生物之有條序耳，且示人以六之日治人事，七之日治

切己之功，而敬頌其造成大恩也，于全能之化字，何礙之有？”

27

Aleni answered him with an emphasis on the “order” of things, meaning that

something was created earlier and another later, although the creation of each day was

done all at a moment on that day. Yet the ‘six-days creation’ revealed that one thing

must be earlier than the other if it was created one day earlier.

Here, we may note that the book An Introduction to the Cosmos (寰有詮),

applies two interpretations of the term “hua”. One is “to make it exist from nothing

(繇絕無令有)”,72 the other is “to produce the myriad things from one thing (繇一物

造成諸物)”. There is no reference to the issue of time. In this Chinese translation of a

European astronomy textbook, the Jesuits inserted a new meaning in the Chinese

word hua, viz. “to have it exist from nothing” rather than “to transform”.

This convert’s main problem was with the ‘six-days’ and the idea of order, as

well as the hierarchy of things and also for the anti-Jesuit literati. However, did it

mean “no order” (次序) when Zhu Xi said “without early or late” (無先後)? Let us

check the words that Master Zhu used elsewhere and see what he meant. He admitted

that one could not tell which came earlier and which later, but this would not prevent

distinguishing the order of things if one “cut it off from the middle” (就中間截斷言

之) when clarification was needed. Order could be understood in the context of, for

instance, the sequence of the four seasons appearing one after another.73 Even though

the four seasons still move in circles, one can say that the winter of 2000 came before

the autumn of 2001. Indeed, the order is rather artificial in human beings’ daily lives

and this “cutting off from the middle” could be viewed as a shift from circular to

linear thinking. In effect, unless one chooses one point of the circle as the starting

point, the discussion about order would not be possible. But this discussion has

nothing to do with whether the world has a beginning and an end or not. For it is

possible to talk about that issue only within the context of linear thinking. This

“cutting off from the middle” is valid only in the clarification of ideas, but it is not a

real break of time.

The Jesuits imported the linear thinking from the West, claiming that the world

started from a certain point in time and would end some time in the future. Their

linear worldview also implied an order and hierarchy of creatures that were created

72 See Huanyou quan, vol.1, p. 24. This was an astromony text used by the Jesuits in Portugal. Li

Zhizao and Franciscus Furtado (1587-1653) translated it into Chinese.

73 Xingli daquan , vols. 26, p, 6: “本不可以先後言，然就中間截斷言之，亦不害其有先後也，觀

周子所言太極動而生陽，則其未動之前固已嘗靜矣……如春秋冬夏……又自有先後也”.

28

one after another during six days. These imported theories were alien to the

intellectuals in Late Ming. One good example of how inconceivable a “beginningless

Lord of Heaven” was in the eyes of Chinese literati, can be found with a famous

anti-Jesuit court officer Yang Guangxian (楊光先). I quote:

The “one without beginning” (無始者, wuzhizhe) means that it has no

beginning. There must be “one without without-beginning (無無始者,

wu-wuzhizhe) who gives birth to this “one without beginning.” And then,

there must be “one without without-without-beginning (無無無始者 ,

wu-wu-wuzhizhe) who bears the “one without without-beginning,” since this

“one without without-beginning” exists. How can one find an end if one

follows this way of thinking?74

One might accuse Yang of ignoring that this was precisely why the Jesuits preached

God as the one-without-beginning. However, I rather think that he indeed illustrated

the two different thought patterns at work in the encounter between the Jesuits and the

Late Ming scholars. With his circular thinking, Yang was unable to imagine someone

without beginning and standing outside the world, who had the power to bring the

world into existence. With their linear thinking about time, the Jesuits introduced an

artificial ‘stopping point’ for the chain of beings and gave the title of “first mover”

and “final cause” to Tianzhu. This is the reason why the late imperial Chinese kept

asking: “Then, who bears this Tianzhu” (誰生天主)75 when the Jesuits tried to

convince them that the Tianzhu was the very one who was beginningless but brought

all things into existence.

2.3. Revealing itself in words or deeds?

If God, Tianzhu, was a producer who resided outside the world as the Jesuits taught,

the question was how this Tianzhu could communicate with the world. How was a

74 Yang Guangxian (楊光先), Pixielun (闢邪論, “An Essay on Refuting Heresy” ), reprinted in Wu,

Xianxain (ed.) Tianzhujiao dongchuan wenxian xubian 天主教東傳文獻續編 (Taipei: Xuesheng

shuju, 1966), vol. 3, p. 1107: “無始者，無其始也，有無始則必有生無始者之無無始，有生無始者

之無無始，則必又有生無無始者之無無無始，溯而上之，曷有窮極。”

75 Ricci recorded a question of a Chinese: “Since you, Sir, say that the Lord of Heaven is the

beginning of all things, may I ask by whom the Lord of heaven was produced?” Cf. Lancashire, pp.

82-83.

29

relationship possible? In Christian tradition, this is treated in the doctrine of revelation.

In the debates between the Jesuits and the Chinese, this issue was formulated in the

question: “whether Heaven speaks or not?” The Confucians believed that Heaven

never spoke, but rather acted and practiced what it meant. In other words, the question

was whether this Tianzhu or Tian was revealed in words or deeds.

When refuting the Confucian axiom of Wanwu yiti, Ricci stated: “When we

come to the creation of all things by the Lord of Heaven, however, we find that He

caused what was non-existent to exist. With one word of command all things were

created.”76 This “with one word of command” eventually became another major

question for the Chinese literati.

The Jesuits did not raise this issue of Christian revelation in words initially,

which might be due to their mission policy of accommodation.77 In principle, the

Jesuits distinguished three stages of revelation: (1) before the Ten Commandments

were promulgated there was the “teaching of Nature” (性教, xingjiao), by which the

knowledge of God was already carved into human hearts; (2) after the Ten

Commandments were promulgated till the Incarnation, there was the teaching of

books (書教, shujiao); (3) after the Incarnation was “the period of the teaching of

grace.” (寵教, chongjiao).78 As we saw in the previous section about the dichotomy

between God (the outside producer) and the world, the gulf required a bridge to

connect the two sides. These three stages implied different mediators: human nature

(reason), the Ten Commandments and the Incarnation.

Having encountered all queries about the Incarnation posed by the Chinese,

Aleni was obliged to offer an explanation of the historical Jesus. He stated:

This [that Tian never spoke] had been true only before the event of

Tianzhu’s “descending birth” on earth (降生, Jiangsheng, refers to the

Incarnation). The Lord of Heaven descended on earth at the end of Western

Han Dynasty, which was clearly recorded in the books of the West. The

sages in ancient time all knew that there was a Tianzhu although they did not

76 Ricci, Tianzhu shiyi, vol.2, p. 49, in Lancashire, p. 211. The Chinese original is “若夫天主造物，則

以無而為有，一令而萬象即出焉。”

77 I am aware of the theological discussions and debates about revelation among different

denominations. But here I will focus on how the Jesuits, Ricci and Aleni in particular, were in dialogue

with the late imperial Chinese about this issue.

78 Li Jiubiao, Kouduo richao, vol. 2, p. 5.

30

have the opportunity to see “the event of descending”. They did not look for

it, but kept worshipping and praying all their lives. They did not stop the

sincere reverence to Tianzhu although He was silent, nor did they forget the

will of the Lord although He had said no word.79

Aleni accepted the idea of “a tian without sound nor smell” (wusheng wuxiu, 無聲無

臭, means that it never spoke), recorded in the Shijing (詩經, “Book of Poetry”) only

partially. He recognized it to be true only before the Incarnation, because the Shijing

had been finished before that. He argued that the people in Chinese ancient time of the

Shijing was written did have the specific awe of the Tianzhu carved in their hearts,

although by the teaching of nature, the ancient people had known that Tianzhu existed

and had kept worshipping Him.80 The event of the Incarnation was described as

“descending birth” (降生) of the Lord of Heaven.

Concerning the history before the Incarnation, Aleni was consistent in his teaching.

Having attributed on the one hand the character of being without smell or sound to the

Lord of Heaven, he introduced on the other hand the doctrine of the Incarnation as the

visible and touchable ‘Lord of Heaven on Earth’. He admitted the mystery of the

Tianzhu as being absolute soundless and smell-less, not to be seen by eyes nor heard

by ears.81 Only by the Incarnation on Earth, could people believe in the existence of

this Lord.82 Aleni’s idea of revelation in three stages thus justified Ricci’s positive

attitude to the Chinese ancient Classics on the one hand, and his criticism of the

Song-Ming Commentaries on the other hand. Although Aleni refrained from Ricci’s

usage of Shangdi, he preserved the possibility of knowing God by human nature

(reason) on the basis of the first stage of revelation: the teaching of nature (xingjiao).

The Jesuit idea of a speaking God was problematic in the Chinese view. Referring

to the authority of Confucius and Mencius, Zhong queried: “Confucius inquires: Does

Tian speak? Mencius says: Heaven does not speak, simply reveals by its actions and

79 Li Jiubiao, Kouduo richao, vol.7, p. 20: “此乃天主未降生以前語也，天主降生在西漢之末，詳

在西書可覽矣，上古聖賢皆知天之有主，未及逢主之降生，然亦無假降生，而時時對越，不以無

聲無臭，故忘篤恭，不以何言，故不畏其命’.

80 Ibid.

81 Clearly referring to the Father, the first person of the Trinity.

82 The Chinese is “天主妙體，雖為實有，第無聲無臭之至，非耳目可以睹聞，不降世則下民雖

信其有，猶以為高高在上，遠而不相涉也……故無聲無臭之主，偕有形有聲者顯著焉.” Cf. Aleni,

Sanshan lunxueji, p. 24-25.

31

affairs.” 83 Zhong’s quotation from Confucius and Mencius needs further

interpretation.

Firstly, the phrase “Does Tian speak?” was quoted from Analects of Confucius

(論語˙陽貨篇), where we read as follows:

Confucius said: ‘I don’t want to speak any longer.’ Zigong (子貢) said:

‘If you don’t speak, what could we, your disciples, pass on?’ Confucius

said: ‘Does Tian speak? Yet the four seasons go their way, and

everything flourishes. Does Tian speak?84

Here the question “Does Tian speak?” was indeed a rhetorical affirmation that Tian

did not speak. Consequently, Master Zhu’s commentary on Confucius’ phrase “the

four seasons proceeded regularly and everything in the world grew up on earth

naturally” meant that the activities of the principle of Heaven were observable. It was

not necessary for Heaven to speak about it.85 The principle could be thoroughly

understood by investigating the things of the world because the principle resided in

each of them. Human beings are endowed with the ability to understand the will of

heaven by observing its activities and investigating the things of the world.

Secondly, the phrase of Mencius was quoted from the Book of Mencius, which

reads as follows:

Wan Zhang (萬章) asked: King Shun [舜] received the state. Who gave

it to him? [Mencius] answered: Tian gave it to him. If Tian gave it to

him, did Tian give specific orders? Mencius said: No! Tian does not

speak but reveals its will through actions and deeds.86

In the opinion of Mencius, Tian was not constantly teaching and preaching by words,

but set a good example by its own conduct. Human beings could follow the virtue and

principles by observing the actions of Tian.

83 Zhong Zhizheng, “Tianxue chuzheng,” p. 3: “孔子曰，天何言哉。孟子曰，天不言，以行與事示

之而已矣。今言古時天主降下十戒，則與漢宋之封禪、天書何異？”.

84 Lunyu (The Analects), 7: 19: “子曰，天何言哉？四時行焉，百物生焉，天何言哉？”.

85 Zhu Zi, Sishu jizhu (四書集注, “Collected Commentaries on the Four Books”), The Analects, vol. 9,

pp. 6-7: “四時行，百物生，莫非天理發現流行之實，不待言而可見”.

86 Mencius, 5A: 5: “天與之者，諄諄然之命乎？曰：否，天不言，以行與事示之而已矣”.

32

Thus, Zhong refuted the Jesuits’ idea of a speaking Tianzhu by the proof he

found in the Classics. On this authority of Confucius and Mencius, Zhong launched

his refutation of the Jesuits with the following analogy:

The promulgation of the Ten Commandments by the Jesuits’ Lord of

Heaven in the ancient Jewish history is just as absurd as the ritual

Fengshan (封禪) transmitted from the Han dynasty and is as fictitious as

the heavenly book which was claimed to be found in the Song dynasty.87

The ritual of Fengshan originated in ancient China. According to the Book of History

(史記˙封禪書), when the whole nation was re-united in peace under a new dynasty,

the emperor was to hold the ritual of Fengshang on Tai Mountain to receive the

divine authority from Heaven. In this ritual, the new emperor announced to the world

the coming of peace and would also give thanks to the heavenly spirits for

establishing the new dynasty, while praying for their providence in the future.88 This

ritual for Heaven had been combined with the ancestor ceremony of the royal family

since the Song dynasty. And now the ceremony took place inside Mingtang (明堂) of

the royal family rather than on Tai Mountain.89 This change was to lift the imperial

authority above the divine authority of Heaven. The tradition of Fengshang of

reverencing Heaven as the highest authority was thus destroyed by this new

arrangement, and the ritual actually became very luxurious which jeopardized the

state during the financial crisis in the Song Dynasty. This ritual now became an

occasion for the courtiers to fawn on the emperor while they claimed the discovery of

heavenly books.90 Thus the ritual of Fengshan from ancient history eventually

became the means of a new emperor to feather his political authority. Zhong degraded

the promulgation of the Ten Commandments by paralleling it with the ritual of

87 Zhong Zhizheng, “Tianzue chuzheng,” p. 3: “孔子曰，天何言哉。孟子曰，天不言，以行與事示

之而已矣。今言古時天主降下十戒，則與漢宋之封禪、天書何異？”.

88 According to Shiji fengshangshu (史記˙封禪書), Zhang Zhoujie chengyi (史記張守節正義),

Feng and Shang are two parts of the ritual. Feng means that the emperor has to build an altar on Tai

Mountain in order to worship heaven. Shang means to set up a flat at the foot of Tai Mountain in order

to announce the merit of the earth.

89 The house where the previous emperors’ tablets were preserved and worshipped by the present

emperors in the Song dynasty.

90 See “Zhenzong benji” (真宗本紀, Biographic Sketch of Emperor Zhengzong), in Songshi 宋史, no.

2-3, p. 15.

33

Fengshan and the discovery of heavenly books,91 which were seriously criticized by

many scholars in Ming China. By comparing it to these negative historical events in

China, Zhong degraded the promulgation of the Ten Commandments with forgery.92

And thereby he also downgraded the authority of the Jesuits’ teaching about a

speaking God who was revealed in words. He emphasized that the description of Tian

“without sound nor smell” in the ancient classics meant that it was not revealed in

words but in its activities of caring and nourishment.

A more sympathetic scholar from Fujian, Zhou, also raised the question about the

idea of a speaking Tianzhu, and stated:

In the Shijing I read, “The providence of Tian is without sound nor smell

(無聲無臭)”. Confucius says, “Does Tian speak?” It is true that there is

one Tianzhu, but it never specifies “who” is the one. Therefore, I suspect

that Tianzhu does not need an image of incarnation.93

The reference of Zhou was the same as Zhong, but Zhou’s focus was different. He

pointed out the crucial question about the uniqueness of the Incarnation and the

question of a personified God. The question raised by Zhou in my view contained two

sub-questions. The first one concerned ‘who’ was Tianzhu. The second one concerned

‘an image’ of this Lord. The first sub-question asked about ‘someone’ existing, like a

person who was named as ‘Tianzhu’. This personification of Tian was not in line with

Song-Ming Confucian tradition. I would think that this first sub-question stemmed

from the commentary of Zhu, who had already pointed it out as follows, “The blue

[sky] is called Heaven, which is functioning and prevailing forever and ever. That is it.

It is not correct, as someone said, that a person is there, judging the good and the evil.

It is also wrong if one says that there is no governor for the Dao (the Way, 道).”94

91 Liu, Zijian 劉子健, “Fengshan wenhua yu mingtang jitian (封禪文化與宋代明堂祭天, “The

Fengshan Culture and the Mingtong Heavenly Sacrifice during Song Dynasty),” in idem, Liangsongshi

yanjiu huibian (兩宋史研究彙編, “Collected Papers of the Studies of the Two Song Dynasties) (Taipei:

Lianjin press, 1987), pp. 3-9.

92 It is not surprising to see that the idea of reverencing Heaven (祭天) was also one of the themes

forbidden by Rome after the Rites Controversy.

93 Li, Jiubiao, Kouduo richao, vol.7, p. 20: “詩云：上天之載，無聲無臭。子曰：天何言哉。天雖

有主，從未嘗指何者為天之主，故疑天主不必有降生之像。”.

94 Li Jingde, Zhuzi yulei (朱子語類, “The Collection of Master Zhu’s Sayings”), vol. 1: “蒼蒼之謂

天，運轉周流不已，便是那個。而今說有個人在那裡批判罪惡，固不可。說道全無主之者，又不

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Although Master Zhu refused “a person out there” to be judging forever, at the

same time he recognized ‘a governor’ for the Dao. Master Zhu placed his vision

midway between a person (human) and a governor (someone who transcended human

beings) for the Dao. On the one hand, he refused a ‘human-like’ figure as a judge, on

the other hand, he recognized the virtue of a governor for the ruling of activities by

which human beings could observe and be inspired by investigating all things (格物).

As to the second sub-question, since Heaven did not have smell and sound like

humans, it was not possible to have any image or a visible figure, viz. the Incarnation.

In his view, what humans could see from Tian was the blue sky instead of a person

incarnated on earth, as portrayed in the picture of Jesus. It was incredible for him to

see a human being [Jesus], claimed to be the unique Incarnation, as descending from

heaven and living on earth. In his conversation with Aleni, he pointed out the Jesuits’

misunderstanding of the meaning of Tian, and advised Aleni not to exclude the

teachings of Buddhists and Daoists, because he thought that they could supplement

one another.95

This idea of a speaking Tian was a difficult theme even for the Chinese

converts. Zhang Geng (張賡) asked: “Does heaven speak? Concerning the heavenly

affairs and merits, why should Tian speak all these out? I [Zhang] think that Aleni’s

book Wushiyanyu (五十言餘, “Fifty Surplus Sayings”) was not necessary.”96 In his

opinion, what Aleni called “surplus” (餘) only highlighted the verbose overtone in

these sayings. More than twenty years after his conversion, Zhang kept his belief in a

silent heaven, which was rather different from the God that Aleni had taught him as

the God of revelation who created the world by words. He agreed that there was one

governor of heaven, but denied that heaven spoke. Zhang opined that human beings’

sayings were not heaven’s sayings, but merely the commentaries on the deeds of

heaven. In Zhang’s view, the Jesuits’ writings were the words spoken on behalf of the

silent Lord of Heaven.

可。”

95 Li Jiubiao, Kouduo richao, vol.7, pp. 21-22.

96 Zhang Geng, “Preface to the Fifty Surplus Sayings” (題五十言餘): “天何言哉？述天上事，行天

上功，何必言？吾謂《五十言餘》可無”. Zhang was baptized in 1623 in Hangzhou. He is one of the

pupils of Yang Tingyun and got to know Aleni before Aleni’s arrival in Fujian province. For detailed

information about Zhang Geng, cf. A. Dudink, “Zhanggeng, Christian Convert of the Late Ming Time:

Descendant of Nestorian Christians?” in C. Jami, and H. Delanaye (eds), L’Européen en Chine (Paris:

College de France, 1993), pp. 57-86.

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3. The idea of Ultimacy and the approaches to it

We have seen that, due to Longobardo’s supervision, Aleni had accepted the new

approach toward the Confucian tradition. Instead of the ancient Classics, he took the

common concept of Song-Ming Confucianism, gewu qiongli as his starting point and

went a step further toward a God outside the world by applying Aquinas’ Five Ways.

He accepted the Li as the foundation of knowing the Creator, while the immanent and

transcendent Tian was replaced by the ‘outside’ Tianzhu (a “Lord of Heaven” outside

heaven).

From the methodological point of view, this approach was successful. But the

conflict between Aleni’s argument and the Confucians’ pivoted on the idea of an

outside producer, the great Architect.97 The analogy of Architect for God was

common among the late Ming Jesuits and was used to oppose the Confucian concept

of Wanwu yiti. The Jesuits interpreted the idea of Ultimacy of the Confucian tradition

as ‘inside’ the world, while they emphasized the distance/difference between God and

the created world to such an extent that God stood opposite to and separated from the

world. Furthermore, the concept of ‘producing’ was used in opposition to the

Confucian concept of ‘giving birth’ by Tian. While they argued that the ability of

‘speaking’ in words came from outside, the Chinese Tian was interpreted as the

visible blue sky which had no will, consciousness or the ability to ‘speak’ to the

people on earth. The Jesuits attempted to argue that it was the speaking Tianzhu who

not only created the world by ‘words’, but also promulgated the Ten Commandments

and eventually became incarnate as the Mediator, who set the covenant with human

beings in order to bridge the gulf between the Creator and the world.

We also saw that the Chinese intellectuals, by contrast, held that Tian never

spoke, let alone produced the world by words. What Tian was doing was rather

nourishing the things in the world silently, viz. it acted rather than spoke. By its work

of “giving birth”, all things in the world were seen as an organic unity. The regular

sequence of the four seasons, the celestial movement and the providence of nature

were all actions and virtues that heaven revealed to human beings. The latter could

fully understand the principle of heaven by investigating the principle within all

things and meditate on one’s own mind, because the principles all were believed to be

97 Although Ricci and Longobardo did not apply Aquinas’ Five Ways, they also portrayed God as an

outsider.

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the same one. There was no need for a mediator to “bridge” the gulf between heaven

and the world, since the two could never be separated.

All this implies that the idea that “Heaven and Earth have a beginning”

appeared as the Jesuits’ main argument against Confucian cosmology. We have

studied their linear understanding of time, viz. that the world started from a certain

point in the past and will end at another point in the future. Their linear worldview

and emphasis on the order and hierarchy of creatures clearly contradicted the

cosmology of the Song-Ming Confucian tradition which presupposed a circular

understanding of time. The world, in this view, was without such a beginning or an

end, while an outside producer would make a gulf between God and the world. The

Jesuits emphasized the difference between God and the world, whereas the

Confucians believed that heaven and the world were ‘not two’. In short the Jesuits

stressed that the creatures were essentially different from the creator, the origin of the

world, whereas the Confucians argued that the origin and the things generated from

the origin must be similar.

I would also like to reflect on the notion of gewu qiongli that has been

mentioned in our discussion above. The first point concerns the approaches to

Ultimacy: from above or below. The Jesuits emphasized that the revelation of God to

the world was formulated in the Christian doctrines, based on the Biblical tradition.

The need of the Ten Commandments and the Incarnation for salvation highlighted

their approach as one ‘from above’. By contrast, the notion of gewu qiongli in the

Song-Ming Confucianism can be seen as an approach ‘from below’. It is an approach

to the Great Ultimacy from an existential point of view.

We saw that one of the reasons why Aleni succeeded in his mission was his

adaptation to gewu qiongli through Aquinas’ five ways demonstration. But he went a

step further, projecting this to an outside God. It was a successful mediation between

an approach from below and that from above. But it also created new problems such

as that of an outsider God, which could be a starting point for a further dialogue. This

problem of an outsider God, in my view, was caused by the Jesuits’ substantialist

understanding of Ultimacy, while the Confucians left Ultimacy open and free from

any form, name and image, without defining it as a substance or person. The

Confucians’ understanding of Ultimacy as a ‘non-substantialist Ultimate’, was fully

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displayed in the axiom Wanwu yiti and Tianren buer (天人不二, “Heaven and human

are not two”).98 This non-substantialist Ultimate means that it cannot be conceived as

an entity or a substance as in scholastic theology. But these approaches from above

and below are to be kept in balance when it comes to the theme of morality, as will

appear in Li’s triangular ethical relationships and in the Chinese phrase for morality,

Dao-de (道德, “the Way and its realization”) and Lunli (倫理, “the principle of

relationships”).

Let me stress here that the point I wish to make is mainly about the

methodology “By words or deeds?” is a question that can be translated as a debate

between doctrinal revelation (revealing in words) and relational truth (the truth that is

discovered in the deeds of the one who reveals). The latter could be conceived in the

interactions that occurred in relationships. The gewu qiongli in the Song Ming

Confucian tradition, in my view, is an approach to Ultimacy ‘from below’, from an

existential point of view. The Confucians left the Ultimacy open to any form, name

and image, without defining it as a substance or person,99 and thereby applied a

methodology of their own.

98 I mentioned it here to show the oneness of Tian and Ren in the Confucian tradition. But the Jesuits

distinguished the former from the latter.

99 蒼蒼之謂天, 運轉周流不已便是那個. 而今說有個人在那裡批判罪惡, 固不可. 說道全無主之

者, 亦不可. Cf. Zhuzi yulei 朱子語類, vol. 1.