终极存在的认识论问题:“神意”与“天命”——评谢文郁与林安梧2018于湖南师范大学的耶儒对话

The Epistemological Problem of Ultimate Existence: “God’s Will” and “Tian ming”-Comment on XIE Wenyu and LIN Anwu’s Dialogue between Christianity and Confucianism at Hunan Normal University 2018

天命和神意从表面上看似乎都共同指向某种终极性关怀,而这种关怀又对人的生存具有相当的的吸引力。就是说,如果人能够把握天命和懂得神意,那么就可以生活在一种'顺天则昌'或'讨神喜悦'的生存状态中,既有了终极性的寄托,也有源源不断的生存动力。问题是,究竟该通过什么样的途径才能够去掌握天命或认识神意,从而进入这样的生存呢?儒家和基督教各有自己的说法。

'God’s Will'and'Tian ming'(天命,mandate of heaven)are core issues in the traditional thought of Christianity and Confucianism respectively.Confucianism proposes to comprehend the meaning of'Tian ming'by listening-entering into one’s life experience,while Christianity stresses on faith-revelation,a religious path for accepting God’s Will.Both are closely related to human survival,yet the different interpretations of'Tian ming'and'God’s Will'given by Confucianism and Christianity have led to two very different ways of living.The Confucian pays attention to moral cultivation,which aims to'comprehend as in an enclosure the transformations of Heaven and Earth[without error];by an ever-varying adaptation he completes the nature of all things[without exception].'In Christianity,on the other hand,one accepts in faith God’s will and so achieves the renewal of the concept of the self and enters a state of living in accord with God’s will.This dialogue between ethics and religion is in essence a collision between two views of existence.The collision shows that when these two views exist or coexist in the same context,some form of tension is inevitable.