Xinshun 1730

Chapter 888
However, Jiang Youren knew that he himself was already a certain degree of "heretic".

This weird and heretical idea is closely related to his coming to Macau, or in other words, the changes in Dashun as a whole over the years.

The first cause of his unknowing heresy was the establishment of the Dashun Academy of Sciences.

Because the purpose of his coming to China is to use scientific knowledge as the key to reopen the door for the Jesuits to return to Dashun.

Therefore, he is very concerned about the situation of Dashun Academy of Sciences.

The "legal system" upheld by the Dashun Academy of Sciences is Leibniz's system of academies of sciences, and it uses the Russian Academy of Sciences' system of foreign academicians leading their own assistants to conduct research, and domestic assistants leading students to conduct research. Science is for application The model is for technology and technology to benefit mankind.

Instead of studying pure science, science for science's sake, and science with a comprehensive understanding of nature as the highest purpose like the group of people in the UK.

Therefore, Dashun's side can be regarded as a very standard Leibniz Academy of Sciences system.

Naturally, some of Leibniz's articles are easy to find and spread here in Dashun.

For the purpose of getting to know Dashun's Academy of Sciences so that he can start from the Academy of Sciences and enter the Academy of Sciences, Jiang Youren certainly read a lot of books on this subject.

It is also natural to see articles such as Leibniz's "Theodicy" and "Monadism".

The meaning of God can also be known from the word itself.

This is of course an old topic, too old to be old.Since God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good, why does evil exist in the world?

In this era, mechanism and atomism are popular, but they cannot solve the continuity and unity of the world, nor can they explain the relationship between matter and spirit.

Leibniz proposed the monad theory in an attempt to reconcile and resolve this contradiction, and finally came to a conclusion through very rigorous reasoning:
Why is there an all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful God, but there is still evil in the world?
When creating a world, there must be countless templates.

Since there is omniscience, it is possible to design an infinite number of possible universes.Yet there can only be one universe, and that is the one we live in.Therefore, the Omniscient must think that this is relatively the best one after comparison.

Excluding concepts such as gods, it roughly means that at the beginning of the birth of the universe, a set of rules was designed, and then everything that followed evolved according to this rule.Including life is only an inevitable evolution under this rule.

There may be a universe with a pi of 3, or a universe with a pi of 4 or even 5678, but in the end we chose the universe with a pi of 3.14...and this is the best one after comparison.

As for good and evil, it roughly means that evil is the cognition of human beings from a limited perspective, but in the perspective of omniscience and infinity, this is actually a kind of good, or it is in line with order, and order itself stands in the perspective of omniscience. The next is good.

This requires a perfect government, so that the wicked will be punished, good will be rewarded with good, and evil will be rewarded with evil.And punishing the wicked is to give mankind a chance to imitate the all-good savior and punish the evil. From this point of view, isn’t these evils good from a broader perspective?
To some extent, it is similar to a "God's Big Chess Party". God is playing a big game of chess, and you have to use a higher, big chess perspective to see the good and evil within the limited perspective of you mortals.

Only in this way can different conclusions be drawn.

This was Jiang Youren's first shock.

The second shock stems from the particularity of Macau.

The special status of Macau and the trade policy of the previous dynasty have made Macau extremely prosperous for a long time since the opening of the East-West trade in the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

This extreme prosperity also created a problem.

The Jesuits want to preach, and missions need money. How to solve the money problem in Macau?By trade, of course.

As the company of Jesus during the Reformation, the Jesuits made three vows not to do business.

But the situation was special, and as an expedient measure, the inspectors of the Eastern Diocese allowed the Jesuits to do business in a moderate manner and raise funds after they came and made a round.

However, in such matters as doing business, either the regulations against doing business must always be maintained, or once an opening is opened, the opening can be extended to infinity.

From investing in the raw silk trade in Japan at the beginning, to the later Jesuits specially preparing their own merchant ships, to monopolizing the trade volume in the Annan area...the bigger and bigger, bigger and bigger.

When Jiang Youren chatted with the local priests in Macau, he could feel the rich taste of the priests here.

And Europe before he came to Macau was also on the verge of a new era, where money was replacing the hierarchical status of the feudal era.

This gave him a hidden worry about the new era.

The Catholic Church forbids idol worship, which is also an important reason for the dispute over Chinese etiquette. Worshiping ancestors and Confucius are all considered idol worship.

Jiang Youren is reflecting, idol worship, does this idol have to be human?
Is the capital, money, wealth, and profits that are abstracted and concreted also a kind of idol?
In the new era, people are all about profit and money. Isn't it a special kind of idol worship?
Standing on the basis of the logical speculation of the academic classics system he accepted, after wondering whether "worshiping money" is also a kind of idol worship, he began to think more.

And this kind of more thinking also comes from the changes of the times and Dashun's trade policy.

He found that the decline of Macau is closely related to Dashun's trade policy.

If Dashun liberalizes trade, Macau will decline; if Dashun closes trade and only leaves Macau, then Macau will prosper.

During the prosperous period of Macau, the missionaries interpreted the prosperous period of Macau as "Our civilization is superior, so Macau is so prosperous".

However, as the center of trade in Dashun moved northward to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River; with the establishment of commercial offices on the banks of Dashun by Britain, France, Holland, and Macao, Macau declined instantly.

Not only is the decline visible to the naked eye, but it has also been reduced to living on human trafficking and opium smuggling.

Jiang Youren is not engaged in economics, he is a missionary.

Therefore, his perspective is still an extension of the worship of money.

That is to say, is the concept of "our civilization is superior" a kind of unconscious idolatry after it has been concretized?The object of worship is our Western civilization itself?
If it were not idolatry, but just a fact, then Macau would neither prosper nor decline because of Dashun's trade policy.

And this is not a fact, but an irrational belief generated by self-cognition, then this is obviously idolatry.

Who said that idols worshiped by idols must be human beings?
And the basis of this worship is not money?Because I made money before, I dare to say that I am superior. Isn't this still a kind of idol worship of money and wealth?
The second shock and thought in his heart stemmed from the new era that Europe had already begun, and finally sprouted and grown in Macao, a special place driven by the Dashun trade policy.

The third shock he suffered in Macau can be traced back to the ideological chaos at the end of Ming Dynasty, and Dashun’s reflection on the problems of the previous dynasty after he defeated the Manchu Qing Dynasty and ended the troubled times in the name of protecting the world.

In short, it is that the previous dynasty almost perished, and there must be something to take the blame.

Who will carry this big blame?

Naturally, it is Neo Confucianism. Of course, there are also critics who say that Neo Confucianism is derived from Psychology.It's impossible for Confucianism as a whole to carry the big pot, right?
This also led to the situation in Dashun where Neo-Confucianism was broken and New Learning was not established.Although there is an official ideology, those that are admired by the official lack a semi-sage to organize them into a system.

For a while, many Confucian scholars believed that "one part of Cheng Zhu, one part of Confucius and Mencius", started the trend of directly reading pre-Qin classics, thinking that the annotations of later generations were obviously mixed with private goods, and they had to read the original text directly, and read pre-Qin ancient books , don't read the annotations of Song Confucianism.

The root of this ethos is the reflection of almost perishing the world.

And this kind of atmosphere also led to the dissemination of a large number of ancient books in the pre-Qin period.However, the pre-Qin books are not only Confucianism, but also various schools of thought, especially in the pre-Qin period, most of the articles were sprayed by each other.

In addition to Confucianism, Jiang Youren tried to read the articles of other pre-Qin schools, and then read Han Feizi's book.

Han Feizi said: In their time, Wu Zhu often wished others a long and boundless life.But there is no fulfillment of making people live an extra day, and it has never pointed out how to live longer.

So people looked down on Wu Zhu at that time, and gradually did not believe in these ghosts and gods.

He also said that the same is true of Confucianism, never talking about what to do, just saying "if you follow my advice, you can do what you want"; but it doesn't talk about how to govern the country in detail, what to do in detail.

Instead of talking about how to govern the country well now, talk about the achievements of governing the country in the past; instead of examining government decrees and other matters, they all praise the good stories passed down from ancient times and the achievements of the previous kings.

Han Feizi sprayed, saying that the behavior of Confucianism is different from those witches who wish people a long life.Isn't this the witch wish in reality?

Not fulfilled at all, and not operable.

Just talk about things that no one has seen in ancient times.

Of course, Han Feizi’s original intention of this article was to finish spraying Mohism and Confucianism, and finally came to the conclusion: the people are ignorant, and taxes on money and food are collected in order to use them to relieve famines and support the army to defend the country, but the people think that the court is greedy .Therefore, public awareness is unreliable.It is not acceptable to follow the will of the people when governing the country...

However, this article is written for the monarch.

From the perspective of missionaries, nature is another perspective.

Jiang Youren felt that what Han Feizi said about Confucianism seemed to be talking about Catholicism.

And because the Catholic Church believes that Huaxia is idol worship, god-worshiping and greedy for money, and it is very realistic, so Jiang Youren drew a conclusion that is not too weird:
If you want Catholicism to really spread in Dashun, you have to get rid of the problem that Han Feizi talked about Confucianism.

The kingdom of heaven is invisible, just like the rule of three generations.

This very realistic nation, such as the previous preferential treatment of missionaries, stems from the fact that missionaries can bring mathematics and astronomy knowledge, rather than true faith in their hearts.

The emperor is so realistic, so the people are even more so?
This may require a human entity to really let them see that Catholicism is possible and possible, so that it is possible to believe in Catholicism in large numbers.

But now, it is impossible to take the emperor's route and the upper-level route, and there is no chance.

So, what should be done to create such a human entity first?

(End of this chapter)