【Special issue: Confucian ethos: Etiguette & Vernacular life】Japanese and Korean Confucian Perspectives on Christianity

Author: Kung-Chiang Chang(Department of East Asian Studies, National Taiwan Normal University)

Vol.&No.：Vol. 58, No. 2
Date：September 2013
Pages：25-46
DOI：10.6210/JNTNULL.2013.58(2).02

Abstract：

This paper compares the perspectives of Japanese and Korean Confucianists on Christianity and the origins of the world. Based on a review of anti-Christian documents written in the early 17th century in Japan, and Confucianist Hayashi Razan’s deliberation of “Taichi” and “God,” this study examines religious debates about “the kingdom of God” and “the kingdom of Buddha.” During the early stages of the dissemination of Catholicism into Korea, Confucianists debated the concepts of Taichi and God intensely. In the 19th century, Confucianists refuted the theory of God by contrasting it with the idea of Taichi based on Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucian worldview. During the final years of the Tokugawa period and the beginning of the Meiji restoration in the mid-19th century, some Japanese anti-Christian scholars contested Christianity’s theory about the creation of the world by applying the qi-monism theory. Initially, criticism about Christianity’s violation of loyalty and filial piety in human relationships was not developed in these anti-Christian debates. However, as Christianity began to gain influence in Korea during the late-18th century and in Japan during the mid-19th century, anti-Christian perspectives focused increasingly on loyalty and filial piety, as demonstrated in Confucian ethical codes practiced during these periods. This specific form of criticism of Christianity gradually became a major topic in religious circles.

Keywords：God, Taichi, Korea and Japan Confucianists, anti-Christian, covergence of Confucianism and Christianity

《Full Text》