The Relationship Between Man And Heaven In China

It is important to give a short background on the Chinese people in the context of life, and politics in order to set the scene for the discussion of their concept of Heaven. The Chinese nation is most probably one of the oldest, if not the oldest, civilizations in the world. It is more than 5 000 years old, and even today continues to grow as a unified state (History of China). However, in recent archeological research (1997) it is believed that the Chinese civilization could go as far back as 10 000 years (Archaeologists Revise Age); this was noted by Shi Shi, who is the director of the Chinese Nationalities History Research Institute in China. Much research around the Chinese existence allowed them to make such a statement. As such, China
The one thing that formed part of the Chinese life and culture from its beginning is humanism. As Chan (1963, p. 3) states, it is the kind of humanism that did not reject a Higher Being, or placed man at the center of all things. Heaven becomes part of the scenario as it is connected to man. This humanism came about as a result of the Chou Dynasty when it conquered the Shang Dynasty. They brought about the changes in that the Ti became a God for the entire nation. Perhaps this unification of a nation is one of the strong suits of the Chinese people. Even though man was challenged to strive for better things, as “experts from all levels of society,” there was still the God that was important, who gave “man and his activities,…greater importance” (Chan 1963, p. 3). It is a humanism that allows man to be the experts. This is not a strange idea in that China had a number of Dynasties where people had great skills and the regions were often run by a feudal system. The reference here is to the word “often” as the Qing Dynasty reintroduced the system after they conquered the Ming Dynasty. The continuous toppling of rulers meant that there was also a lot of treason and violence amidst all the “humanism.” Thus, one could assume that there is a vast difference between what the
For this purpose, they introduced the “Mandate of Heaven” that was a moral law that existed independently from Heaven, and was based in virtue that was constant and reliable. Looking at what Confucius set up, it seems that it was exactly the same thing. He made a separation between Heaven and Moral Law (Chan 1963, p. 16). The humanism finds its grounding here in that man achieves his destiny through his “own good words and [his] own good deeds” (Chan 1963, p. 3). As the previous Dynasty believed in the Ti, the Chou Dynasty brought about the changes in that Heaven (or T’ien) became the “supreme spiritual reality” (Chan 1963, p. 3). Keping (2004) stated clearly what the humanism was all about, in that he spoke of it as “the heavenly way and the human way.” This is specifically in the context of Taoism in terms of “its principle of tian dao” (Keping 2004). A number of poems (Odes) were written regarding the issues around the Heavenly Way. Confucius incorporated these Odes into the documents he compiled for the Five Classics. In terms of this principle, it is a matter of the Heavenly Way in conjunction with the Human Way as opposed to the worship of a deity or God for that matter. The importance here is that the Chinese humanism became more and more important and “reached its climax in Confucius” (Chan 1963, p.