李贽与西学

LI Zhi and Western Learning

李贽晚年阐说《诗》义、发挥《学》《庸》、精研《易》理,似可看作是对利玛窦以基督教义来"合儒、补儒、超儒"的回应;他以华夏民族为天神之子,是对罗明坚宣扬的"圣灵降孕而生耶稣说"的回应,亦似可看作力图使基督教信仰中国化的最初尝试;以孔子"敬鬼神而远之"之义来批评各种求媚于鬼神的迷信活动和假道学的大言诓人,畅论不可谓祭天为祭理,亦不可谓祭气,是对利玛窦学说的发挥;其《明灯道古录》着力表彰与基督教哲学最近似的墨子学说,似乎也有寻求与西学的会通、使基督教信仰中国化的意味;其最后一部重要著作《九正易因》,从"万物统以乾元"推出"人人各正一乾之元",因而"各具有是首出庶物之资",更展示了一种以哲学代宗教的新思路。

In his twilight years, LI Zhi elaborated the meaning of The Book of Songs （She King）, elucidated The Great Learning （Da Xue） and The Doctrine of the Mean （Zhong Yong）, and studied the philosophy of The Book of Changes （I Ching）, which seems to be the response to Matteo Ricci’s strategies of mixing with Confucianism, reinforcement of Confucianism and exceeding Confucianism based on the dogma of Christ. LI regards the Huaxia nation as the sons of Heaven, which is the response to the Immaculate Conception that Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, advocated by Michele Ruggieri, and seems to be the initial attempt to try hard to sinicize Christian faith. According to the meaning of Confucian motto“hold in awe and fear the Spiritual Powers of the Universe while keep aloof from irreverent familiarity with them”, LI criticizes flattering the spiritual powers or beings of the Universe and hypocrites’s hollow and empty words which can deceive people, and spare no effort to vigorously advocate that the sacrifice to Heaven cannot be understood as the sacrifice to Principle or to Matter-Energy （or Substantiality）, which develops Matteo Ricci’s theory. LI’s monograph The Enlightened Record of Queries of Chinese Classical Writings （Ming Deng Dao Gu Lu） puts forth a great effort to praise Mohist theory most similar to Christian philosophy, which also seems to have the implication of searching for the mutual-communication with Western learning and sinicizing Christian faith. In LI’s last important monograph Serial Rectifications of the Research on The Book of Changes （Jiu Zheng Yi Yin）, that everyone“obtains his/her correct great and originating power as appointed by Qian”can be inferred from that“all things are contained, controlled and united by the great and originating power indicated by Qian”, with the result that“everyone has such potential that everyone has the sage that appears aloft, high above all things”, which even shows a new way of thinking, i.e. the way of replacing religion with philosophy.