PhilosophersZhu Xi

Zhu Xi

Study the principle (li) of things to perfect oneself.

Neo-Confucianism1130 – 1200 ChinaNeo-ConfucianCommentator on the classicsMetaphysicsEducator
Classified Conversations 1 and 4

The "Lord on High" is principle, not a person

What it claims

There is no personal creator above the world: the order of the world is that of principle, which is in things.

Why

The Sovereign is the principle, which does not exist apart from things and has no intention or will to make.

Valid with an implicit premise

When the old texts say "Heaven" or "the Lord on High", is someone up there? For Zhu Xi, what is so named is principle (li), the order that makes each thing what it is. This principle has neither will nor plan, and does not exist apart from things. Beware: the P1..P3 → C form is our reconstruction and it simplifies. Zhu Xi also refuses to say there is no master at all: to say a person judges faults from above is impossible, he says, but to say nothing governs is impossible too. Moreover the "pantheism" camp is the closest, not an exact portrait: he does not say God is Nature, he reads the word "Sovereign" as a name for principle. No camp of the question fits perfectly. The quotations come from the Yulei, conversations recorded by students.

P1The "Sovereign" and "Heaven" of the old texts are principle: nothing in the world is more honoured than principle, which is why it is called "Sovereign".
P2Principle does not exist apart: without qi, it would have nowhere to hang on.
P3Principle has no feeling or intention, no calculation, no fabrication: it is qi that condenses and makes.
P4 · implicit premiseIf the Sovereign is principle, it is a personal creator only if principle exists apart from things, or if it wills and makes.
Therefore there is no personal creator above the world: the order of the world is that of principle, which is in things.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, the computer finds a case where Heaven is principle, principle does not exist apart and wills nothing, and yet a personal creator exists in addition: a being that is not principle and that nothing said about principle excludes.
The argument is valid and its four premises are essential. The weak point is P4: it says what a personal creator is, for us, and Zhu Xi does not state it. A believer would answer that a personal creator need not be "apart" in space, nor "make" like a craftsman. Another limit: elsewhere Zhu Xi says Heaven's mind is to produce beings, and he refuses the conclusion "no master at all" (Yulei 1, §22). The argument shows what he denies, not all of his thought.
Analogy. The rules of a game: they order the match and give each move its sense, but they do not play, want nothing and exist only in games being played. For Zhu Xi, the order of the world is real, but no one "hands it down" from above.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

A
A student (Classified Conversations) attacks the conclusion

The old texts say: "the Lord on High sends down…", "Heaven supports the people…". Does the blue sky above really have a master who governs in this way? Or does Heaven have no thought, and one is only tracing back to the principle being so?

Zhu Xi replies
Zhu Xi
These three passages have only one meaning. This too is only principle being so.
Z
Zhu Xi (another conversation)
To say there is someone up there who judges faults is not possible; to say there is no master at all is not possible either.
The debate goes on (our summary) The answer says the religious expressions designate principle, but it does not say this principle has no way of "governing". Zhu Xi keeps both: no person, but no chance either. It is an in-between position that the camps of the question render poorly. (Our summary.)
A
A tension within Zhu Xi himself attacks premise 2

Zhu Xi sometimes says that principle comes first, and would remain if mountains, rivers and earth collapsed. Then principle would exist apart from the world, as a separate foundation: is this not what a believer calls God?

Zhu Xi replies
Zhu Xi
Principle and qi have, at bottom, no before or after to speak of. But when one traces back to the origin, it is as if principle came first and qi after.
The debate goes on (our summary) The students recorded formulas that do not quite agree, at different moments of his life. This answer makes priority a manner of speaking, but the sentence on the collapse of the world goes further. The debate remains lively among scholars, and among later critics (Wang Yangming, Dai Zhen) who reproach him with separating principle from things or from the mind. (Our summary.)
M
Matteo Ricci 1603 · attacks premise 3

Principle is only a quality of things, not a being that subsists. It can neither know, nor will, nor create. An order so precise can only come from an orderer: a Lord of Heaven is needed, personal and creator.

no reply
summary: their text is not yet in our corpus
No reply possible: objection raised in 1603, after the author's death (1200).
The debate goes on (our summary) Zhu Xi could not know this objection, which dates from 1603. He already accepts that principle has no will or calculation (Yulei 1, §13): what Ricci presents as a defect, he holds as a trait of principle. For a Neo-Confucian, the objection assumes what it wants to prove, that an order must come from an orderer. Ricci would answer that this is exactly what needs explaining: how could a principle without thought produce so constant an order? (Our summary.)