Graduation Year
2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
Religious Studies
Major Professor
Wei Zhang, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Gil Ben-Herut, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Cass Fisher, Ph.D.
Keywords
Analects, China, Heaven, Religiosity
Abstract
This paper seeks to analyze the three earliest Confucian thinkers and the foundational texts associated with them. In studying these texts this paper attempts to discover how these early Confucian thinkers conceived of Tian. This paper claims the early Confucian thinkers did not make as radical of a departure from the Ancient Chinese religiosity as many modern scholars have suggested. It has often been asserted that the tradition presented by these Confucian thinkers was entirely humanistic, altogether separate from the Ancient Chinese religiosityThis paper contests such claims,instead insisting that the early Confucian spirituality still viewed Tian as God and that the three earliest thinkers actually introduced new concepts which expanded, rather than diminished, upon the role of Tian.
Scholar Commons Citation
Atkinson, Jacob Thomas, "Altering Tian: Spirituality in Early Confucianism" (2015). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/5637
