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Tsunami and God: a Confucian view of natural disasters
Friday, January 14, 2005 By Franz Schurmann

With the Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster it seems that God is coming back on the world scene. For a historian it’s not surprising.

In A.D. 70, when Mt. Vesuvius exploded only eight years after the Romans destroyed the Great Solomon’s Temple of Jerusalem, Christian groups multiplied all over Asia, Africa and Europe. But while the Old Testament gave us a vengeful God who could unleash the mother of all tsunamis because His greatest creation, humanity, went against Him, Chinese philosophy gives us another view of natural disasters.

In the sixth century B.C., Confucius wrote down, for the first time, 14 thick oral legends. The 13th book, the “Spring and Autumn Annals” showed how in his lifetime one disaster followed another, leading both to death by warfare and death by acts of God (as modern insurance agents say).

The disasters occurred especially in the Yellow River region, ancient China’s homeland. Confucius put the blame on the power-driven warlords, each of whom insisted they alone had the “mandate of heaven,” or more correctly, “God commands” (tianming). Instead of making sure the levees vital for an overwhelming peasant society were secure, for example, the warlords first selfishly pursued their own aggrandizement.

In the second century B.C. China finally became a great empire, enjoying peace and prosperity. Its great leader Wu Di, the warrior emperor, was 16 when he ascended the throne and reigned for 59 years. Wu Di’s equally formidable prime minister, the philosopher Dong Zhongshu’s, made Confucianism the state creed, which lasted until 1911.

But Dong was worried about the empire’s future.

In his official memoirs he dictated: “Our Han dynasty has ruled for three generations, but what do we have to show for it? We have strange disasters that keep changing and we don’t know where they come from.”

Dong had a remedy for these catastrophes: “God and humans must become comrades with each other.”

He explained: “God can be happy or angry and can grieve or rejoice. God aids people and gives them direction. God and Humans are one.”

The core of Dong’s creed was that only the emperor can receive the “mandate of heaven.” If the emperor obeys God’s commands he and his imperial domains will enjoy peace and prosperity. If not, he himself will contract terrible disasters and so will the empire.

When many Westerners came to China five centuries ago they debated whether the Chinese had a religion. The word chosen as a compromise in the Chinese language for the Western word religion is a tepid phrase, “teachings of ancestors.”

Professor Lao Siguang, author of a four-volume “History of Chinese Philosophy,” concedes there are many interpretations of the Chinese word Tian, “heaven,” but he prefers the “highest authority,” definitely not a mute God.

The historical facts show that around the beginning of the second millennium, Chinese philosophers made Confucianism a purely secular creed. Dong Zhongshu’s views, especially that “God and Humans are One,” were put on the back burner.

But that did not mean the Chinese had no religion. Confucius himself sustained his income as a traditional priest and his first book was about liturgical music. In A.D. 68, the Emperor Ming told his entourage about one of his dreams. He saw the figure of the Buddha surrounded by his aura. Ming’s dream likely was legitimatization for a new religion in the Han empire.

While the majority of Chinese got their spiritual needs from Taoism and Buddhism, the empire encompassed just about every religion. A century after Ming many Chinese poured into Buddhist monasteries located far from villages and towns. But if anyone wanted a career in the em-pire’s huge bureaucracy, they first had to spend many years studying Confucius’ 13 books.

Even 1,000 years earlier, the Chinese made a distinction between created and non-created things. The created things come from seeds, eggs or other created things. The non-created things come from God and Nature.

The philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) also believed that things only existed if linked with other things. He wrote that God and Nature were identical.

Dong Zhongshu’s call for “God and Humans to become comrades with each other” stands out in contrast to the deep pessimism of the “Book of Ecclesiastes” in the Old Testament. Its unknown author paints a landscape of utter futility even in the temple, leading to an image of a “vengeful God.”

There are legends on every continent about a great flood and even recent discovery of charred wood in the depths of the Black Sea where Noah is said to have landed his ark at nearby Mountain Ararat. Today’s legitimate concerns over global warming resemble Biblical tales of the flood. Dong’s philosophy was aimed at preserving the human race. He was convinced that the 13 books of Confucius could do that best. And that would mean God/Tian and Nature would be fused.

Franz Schurmann, writing for Pacific News Service, is emeritus professor of history and sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

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