해학 이기의 신인(神人/眞君) 의식과 동북아 평화

Abstract

This paper examines the life and thoughts of the resistant Confucian scholar, Hae-Hak Lee Ki (海鶴 李沂, 1848-1909) in light of the realities of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia in the 21st century. Today, the situation of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia is very tense as the respective strongholds of global hegemony such as the U.S., China and Japan. In this situation, the Korean Peninsula is suffering again amid the danger of a war outbreak and the threat of various non-subject beings. In the 19th century which was similar to our times in many respects, as an independent Confucian scholar, Hae-Hak wanted to save the country from the violent occupation of Western imperial powers, including Japanese imperialism. With the best efforts and special interest in ancient Korean history, he tried to radically reshape and renovate national standard of the study, the politics, the economy, the land policy and diplomacy, and finally, Korean people's spiritual Learning on the Ultimate or the Absolute, so that a new country of genuine independence and self-reliance can be developed from there. This paper aims to see what his thinking on the Homo-Deus human being (Shin-In, 神人) or the true Human being (Jin-Gun, 眞君) means in our time today. From the dialogue with ancient Korean indigenous thinking and history, he tried to build new religious spiritual ideas, ‘the True Learning’ (眞敎) that were not imaginable in the previous Confucian world view centered on China and its history. In doing this, he also performed sincerely critical dialogue with Western Catholic church, in the hope of integration and creative innovation of his time’s deteriorated Confucian thinking. In this respect, we want to see what it means his thinking on Shin-In or Jin-Gun as his core idea and ideal in his multi-dimensional efforts to save the nation, and we think, those ideas can be also meaningful as a new spiritual foundation for the reunification of the Korean Peninsula and the peace in Northeast Asia, and especially for our time of the Post human (Homo-deus) or AI (Artificial Intelligence). This study can be regarded as a dialogue between Confucianism and Christianity for our era.