Giulio Aleni, Kouduo richao, and Christian–Confucian Dialogism in Late Ming Fujian by Song Gang

Author:Song Gang [Gang, Song]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Asia
ISBN: 9780429959202
Google: uaxvDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-10-03T01:33:07+00:00

Zhou’s question is twofold. Not only does he doubt the supreme status of the Lord of Heaven who was born as a man, but he also doubts the very existence of such an invisible deity. Aleni skillfully employs rhetorical reasoning in his answer. For the first part, he makes an analogy between the supreme Lord of Heaven and an emperor similar to the aforementioned discussion between him and Dai wenxue. In this case, Aleni focuses on the point that going into a region to pacify the rebels himself is not a mark of humiliation for the emperor. In the second part, Aleni builds up a strong argument by applying Zhou’s own logic to the history of China: what is not seen is not necessarily non-existent.

The argument reminds us of another case in Tianzhu shiyi where Ricci adopts the same type of reasoning to oppose the point of a Chinese scholar. According to the latter, the theory of Hell is not reliable, since it is not recorded in the ancient Classics. Ricci starts with a scholastic argument: a book can prove the existence of a fact, but not the non-existence of a fact. Then he argues,

In the ancient canonical writings of our Western nations, it is recorded that formerly, when the Lord of Heaven created heaven and earth, he created a man, who was called Adam, and a woman, called Eve, the first ancestors of all people in this world. These canonical writings make no mention, however, of the two emperors Fu Hsi and Shen Nung. We can prove from this that there really were two people called Adam and Eve, but we cannot prove that later there was no Fu Hsi and Shen Nung. If we look at things from the standpoint of the Chinese canonical writings, however, we can prove that in ancient China there were two men called Fu Hsi and Shen Nung, but we cannot prove that our first parents, Adam and Eve, did not exist. If this were not so, would it not be possible to say that the many countries in the West do not exist simply because there is no mention of them in the records which give an account of Yü [of the Hsia dynasty]? Thus, although the books of Confucianism do not argue clearly for the doctrine of Heaven and Hell, one should not for this reason refuse to believe it.35

The use of rhetorical reasoning by Ricci and Aleni not only indicates the training that they had received in Europe, but it also points to an ideological self–other paradox in their dialogic exchanges with the Chinese. Their point of view can be summarized in a simple statement: the Middle Kingdom does not comprise the whole world, and beyond it there are equally civilized countries, especially the West. The fact can soundly prove how the Chinese assertion on the non-existence of God or Adam and Eve may be false due to cultural bias and weak inductive reasoning. The dialogic situation between two equals

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