《尚书》中的天命观及其演进过程

The Concept of Destiny in Book of History and its Evolution

中国思想史上的“天命”概念最早可见于《尚书·盘庚》。商王盘庚所说的“天命”是原始自然崇拜演化的结果,并与殷商时盛行的祖先崇拜结合在一起。周初统治者在部分继承殷商天命观之余,为“天命”赋予了伦理的意义,使其成为普遍必然性的象征。纵观《尚书》中天命观的演进过程,主要是循着从狭隘到普遍、从重“神”到重“人”两条线索,深刻影响了以后的思想家对“天命”的理解。周初统治者从经验性的历史过程去阐释“天命”,将承载“天命”的圣王与普遍的道德法则等同视之,影响和形成了中国古代思想史上持续两千多年的圣王崇拜和复古情结,在一定程度上限制了后世思想家的形而上思维方式与哲理抽象能力的发展境界。

The concept of“destiny”in the history of Chinese thought can first be found in Pan Geng of Book of History.The“destiny”mentioned by Pan Geng,the king of Shang Dynasty,is formed as a result of primitive nature worship and also the combination of nature worship with ancestor worship prevailing in the Shang Dynasty.In the early Zhou Dynasty,in partial inheriting the concept of destiny of previous dynasty,the rulers endowed“destiny”with ethical significance and made it a symbol of universal inevitability.Throughout the evolution process,the concept developed along two ways:from narrow to universal and from emphasizing deity to emphasizing mankind,which has a profound impact on the later thinkers’understanding of“destiny”.The rulers of the early Zhou dynasty interpreting the“destiny”from the experiential historical process,regarded the holy king carrying the“destiny”as the same as the universal moral law,which influenced and formed the holy king worship and retro concept lasting more than 2000 years in the history of ancient Chinese thought.To some extent,it restricted the development of the metaphysical thinking mode and philosophical abstraction ability of the later thinkers.