God and the Dao 「神」與「道」

God and the Dao

神」與「道」

Edited by John Lagerwey 勞格文 & Olivier Lardinois, SJ 丁立偉

God and the Dao grew out of an international conference convened by the Taipei Ricci Institute in May 2025. The conference sought to explore a renewed approach to religious dialogue between biblical and Chinese traditions—one that neither conflates differences nor reduces dialogue to a search for superficial similarities. Instead, it asks how traditions may encounter one another in ways that preserve their distinctiveness while opening new possibilities for mutual understanding, transformation, and enlargement.

The encounter between Christianity and Chinese religious thought has a long and complex history. Although it may be traced back to the Nestorian presence in Tang China, its more sustained form began with the Jesuit mission of the late sixteenth century. Matteo Ricci and his successors developed different approaches to Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, while later Jesuit Figurists such as Joachim Bouvet, Joseph-Henri de Prémare, and Jean-François Foucquet searched Chinese classical texts for points of contact with Christian revelation. Their work, particularly on the Yijing 易經 and Daodejing 道德經, represents one of the earliest sustained attempts to bring Christian theology into dialogue with Chinese religious and philosophical traditions.

This volume revisits that history while also bringing the discussion into the present. Its essays examine the theological assumptions of the early Jesuit mission, Jewish and Christian names for God, the historical development of Daoism, and new possibilities for dialogue between biblical and Chinese traditions.

The volume brings together papers by nineteen scholars and speakers from Taiwan and abroad, representing Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Daoist, and Daoist philosophical traditions. Writing from their respective religious, intellectual, and academic perspectives, the contributors offer a wide range of approaches to the questions explored in this book. Several of the essays are presented bilingually in Chinese and English.

At the heart of the book is a question that remains urgent today: how can religious traditions learn from one another without erasing what makes each of them distinctive? Rather than seeking synthesis or fusion, God and the Dao explores points of contact and symbolic resources that may allow different traditions to be understood more deeply and their horizons to be enlarged through encounter.

 

本書源自台北利氏學社於 2025 年 5 月舉辦的一場國際研討會。這場會議旨在探索聖經傳統與中國宗教傳統之間一種新的宗教對話方式：既不抹去彼此的差異，也不把對話簡化為尋找表面的相似之處，而是思考不同傳統如何在保持自身獨特性的同時，透過相遇開啟新的理解，並在彼此交流中得到轉化與拓展。

基督宗教與中國宗教思想之間的相遇，有著悠久而複雜的歷史。若追溯其源頭，可上溯至唐代景教在中國的傳播；但較為持續而深入的對話，則始於十六世紀末的耶穌會中國傳教。利瑪竇及其後繼者對儒家、佛教與道教採取了不同的理解與回應方式。其後，白晉、馬若瑟、傅聖澤等符象論者，更試圖從中國經典中尋找與基督宗教啟示相互參照的可能。他們尤其對《易經》與《道德經》的研究，構成了早期基督宗教神學與中國宗教及哲學傳統持續對話的重要嘗試。

本書在重新檢視這段歷史的同時，也進一步將問題帶向當代。書中各篇論文分別探討早期耶穌會傳教的神學前提、猶太教與基督宗教對天主的稱謂、道教的歷史發展，以及聖經傳統與中國宗教傳統之間新的對話可能。

本書共收錄 19 位來自海內外的天主教、基督新教、猶太教、道教及道學學者與講者所發表的論文，從各自的宗教、思想與學術傳統出發，呈現多元而彼此交會的觀點。部分文章以中、英雙語收錄。

全書所關注的核心問題是：不同宗教傳統如何在不消除彼此差異的前提下，真正從對方身上學習？「神」與「道」並不追求綜合或融合，而是試圖尋找能夠建立聯繫的思想與象徵資源，讓不同傳統在相遇之中得到更深的理解，並拓展彼此的視野。

 

Language / 語言： English / 中文

Softcover / 平裝：672 pages

ISBN: 978-626-98785-3-6

 

Dialogue and Mysticism 對話與神祕主義

1. Perichoresis and the Motion of the Dao – Benoît Vermander, S.J. 魏明德
2. Godhead and Dao: Dialogue and Synthesis – Chan Tak-Kwong 陳德光

The Names of God 神的稱名

3. Torah and Dao – Julien Darmon
4. Logos and the “Way” in Early Christianity – Michel Fédou, S.J.
5. From Elohim to YHWH: The Evolution of God’s Names According to the Hebrew Bible – Thomas Cui 崔寶臣
6. Let the Light Shine through: A Note on the Preposition dia in the Chinese (Mandarin) Translations of John 1:1–18 – Goh Menghun吳孟翰

The Daoist Dao 道教中的道

7. 先秦道家「內聖外王」說的淵源、建構及其修證理法、經驗──以密契主義、工夫實踐及《老子》16章為核心的探討 – Hsiao Chinming 蕭進銘
8. The Dao in Early Chinese Daoism – John Lagerwey 勞格文
9. 中古時期道教之道論與至上神 – Li Heshu李龢書
10. 行道謁帝：道士修齋的方法與目的 – Chang Chaojan張超然
11. 道、炁/氣、神：從慈到大慈的宗教實踐 – Lee Feng-mao李豐楙
12. 奉道與修真：以當代臺灣北部正一派道士為例 – Lin Chenyuan 林振源

The Neo-Confucian Dao 宋明理學中的道

13. 有軀殼的道：與蘇學論辯中朱熹對學道的理解 – Tsai Chih-che蔡至哲

The Early Jesuit Mission 早期耶穌會傳教事業

NB: Daniel Canaris’s (柯修文) paper on Niccolò Longobardo, which was presented at the May 2025 symposium and is discussed in the introduction, is forthcoming in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.

14. François Noël, S.J. and the Dao – Thierry Meynard, S.J. 梅謙立

The Figurists 索隱派

15. Joachim Bouvet and the Dao – Claudia von Collani 柯蘭霓
16. Two Figurists’ Theological Lenses: Two Views of the Dao, One Revelation1 – Sophie Ling-chia Wei 魏伶珈

Later Jesuits and the Birth of Sinology 後期耶穌會士與漢學的興起

17. Reframing the Secte des Tao-Sée as Philosophy and Occult Science: Late-eighteenth Century ex-Jesuits and Nineteenth Century Orientalists – Chen Lejiamei 陳樂佳美
18. 由「道」入「名」：近代西方《道德經》翻譯與「夷希微」三字母聖名 – Pan Feng-chuan 潘鳳娟

Analogy in Cross-Cultural Dialogue 跨文化對話中的類比

19. Analogy: a point of resonance between knowledge and self-cultivation – Yves Vendé, S.J. 溫德