从儒教观点论宗敎多元主义

Abstract

“Religious pluralism” and “secularization” are symbols representing current religious situations. This paper pays attention to the meaning and necessity of dialogue between Confucianism and Christianity and contemplates the contemporary meaning of Confucian philosophy based on the concepts. The most important issue to evaluate the contemporary significance of Confucianism is to recover its own identity. When individuals, nations, cultures, or philosophies restore their own identity, it is desirable to proceed in relationships with others; Self-recovery of Confucianism also has to be performed in relationships with other thoughts, philosophies, and etc. In this respect, Western intellectual and religious history is obviously noticeable. In particular, to examine the Christian culture as one of the representative Western cultures can help to identify the current status of Confucianism. Also, when it comes to considering the historical and contemporary positions of Confucianism and Christianity, on the threshold of 21st century, the meeting between them is a significant opportunity to communicate between Eastern and Western cultures. Through this research, Confucian and Christian cultures can be reevaluated. The common criticism of intellectual and religious history is that it has maintained Western-centered perspectives. Therefore, evaluation from the standpoint of Confucianism can provide a more meaningful direction for meeting between Eastern and Western cultures than one-sided acceptance of criticism towards Confucianism from the standpoint of Western religions. This is because it is obvious that now is the time to overcome Western-centered culture chauvinism, self-righteous religious viewpoints, and Western-oriented religious description formed in 19th century. Not only that, but it has been often asserted that the dialogue with Confucianism is needed. Thus, it is required that Confucian scholars should actively understand the Western religious history and viewpoints, and establish point of view in conversation with Western religions.