Confucianism

• Confucianism

92:6.64. The Con­fu­cian teach­ings.

131:9.1Even the least God-rec­og­niz­ing of the world’s great re­li­gions ac­knowl­edged the mono­the­ism of the Mel­chiz­e­dek mis­sion­ar­ies and their per­sis­tent suc­ces­sors. Ga­nid’s sum­mary of Con­fu­cian­ism was:

131:9.2“What Heaven ap­points is with­out er­ror. Truth is real and di­vine. Ev­ery­thing orig­i­nates in Heaven, and the Great Heaven makes no mis­takes. Heaven has ap­pointed many sub­or­di­nates to as­sist in the in­struc­tion and up­lift­ing of the in­fe­rior crea­tures. Great, very great, is the One God who rules man from on high. God is ma­jes­tic in power and aw­ful in judg­ment. But this Great God has con­ferred a moral sense even on many in­fe­rior peo­ple. Heaven’s bounty never stops. Benev­o­lence is Heaven’s choic­est gift to men. Heaven has be­stowed its no­bil­ity upon the soul of man; the virtues of man are the fruit of this en­dow­ment of Heaven’s no­bil­ity. The Great Heaven is all-dis­cern­ing and goes with man in all his do­ings. And we do well when we call the Great Heaven our Fa­ther and our Mother. If we are thus ser­vants of our di­vine an­ces­tors, then may we in con­fi­dence pray to Heaven. At all times and in ev­ery­thing let us stand in awe of the majesty of Heaven. We ac­knowl­edge, O God, the Most High and sov­er­eign Po­ten­tate, that judg­ment rests with you, and that all mercy pro­ceeds from the di­vine heart.

131:9.3“God is with us; there­fore we have no fear in our hearts. If there be found any virtue in me, it is the man­i­fes­ta­tion of Heaven who abides with me. But this Heaven within me of­ten makes hard de­mands on my faith. If God is with me, I have de­ter­mined to have no doubt in my heart. Faith must be very near the truth of things, and I do not see how a man can live with­out this good faith. Good and evil do not be­fall men with­out cause. Heaven deals with man’s soul in ac­cor­dance with its pur­pose. When you find your­self in the wrong, do not hes­i­tate to con­fess your er­ror and be quick to make amends.

131:9.4“A wise man is oc­cu­pied with the search for truth, not in seek­ing for a mere liv­ing. To at­tain the per­fec­tion of Heaven is the goal of man. The su­pe­rior man is given to self-ad­just­ment, and he is free from anx­i­ety and fear. God is with you; have no doubt in your heart. Ev­ery good deed has its rec­om­pense. The su­pe­rior man mur­murs not against Heaven nor holds a grudge against men. What you do not like when done to your­self, do not to oth­ers. Let com­pas­sion be a part of all pun­ish­ment; in ev­ery way en­deavor to make pun­ish­ment a bless­ing. Such is the way of Great Heaven. While all crea­tures must die and re­turn to the earth, the spirit of the no­ble man goes forth to be dis­played on high and to as­cend to the glo­ri­ous light of fi­nal bright­ness.”

94:6.10The Con­fu­cian preach­ment of moral­ity was pred­i­cated on the the­ory that the earthly way is the dis­torted shadow of the heav­enly way; that the true pat­tern of tem­po­ral civ­i­liza­tion is the mir­ror re­flec­tion of the eter­nal or­der of heaven. The po­ten­tial God con­cept in Con­fu­cian­ism was al­most com­pletely sub­or­di­nated to the em­pha­sis placed upon the Way of Heaven, the pat­tern of the cos­mos.

94:6.11The teach­ings of Lao have been lost to all but a few in the Ori­ent, but the writ­ings of Con­fu­cius have ever since con­sti­tuted the ba­sis of the moral fab­ric of the cul­ture of al­most a third of Uran­tians. These Con­fu­cian pre­cepts, while per­pet­u­at­ing the best of the past, were some­what in­im­i­cal to the very Chi­nese spirit of in­ves­ti­ga­tion that had pro­duced those achieve­ments which were so ven­er­ated. The in­flu­ence of these doc­trines was un­suc­cess­fully com­bated both by the im­pe­rial ef­forts of Ch’in Shih Huang Ti and by the teach­ings of Mo Ti, who pro­claimed a broth­er­hood founded not on eth­i­cal duty but on the love of God. He sought to rekin­dle the an­cient quest for new truth, but his teach­ings failed be­fore the vig­or­ous op­po­si­tion of the dis­ci­ples of Con­fu­cius.

5:4.7The Zoroas­tri­ans had a re­li­gion of morals; the Hin­dus a re­li­gion of meta­physics; the Con­fu­cian­ists a re­li­gion of ethics. Je­sus lived a re­li­gion of ser­vice. All these re­li­gions are of value in that they are valid ap­proaches to the re­li­gion of Je­sus. Re­li­gion is des­tined to be­come the re­al­ity of the spir­i­tual uni­fi­ca­tion of all that is good, beau­ti­ful, and true in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence.