Confucianism
Confucianism does not centre on a creator God; its highest reference point is Heaven (Tian), the moral order above humanity that confers our nature and its mandate. The oldest classics also speak of Shangdi, the Lord on High; later Neo-Confucians described the ultimate as a cosmic principle (Li) and the Supreme Ultimate (Taiji), and these are marked as such.
- Tian (Heaven)天
Heaven: the supreme moral power above humanity, which knows people and to which they answer.
Confucius says one who offends against Heaven has nowhere left to pray.
Analects 3.13 ↗ - Huang Tian (Great Heaven)皇天
August or Great Heaven, which looks with favour on the worthy and bestows their charge.
Ascribed to Heaven, in the older classics. The minister Yi tells the ruler that Great Heaven regarded him with favour.
Shujing (Book of Documents), Counsels of the Great Yu ↗ - Shangdi (Lord on High)上帝
The Lord on High: the supreme sovereign of the ancient Shang and Zhou, who gives people a moral sense.
From the older classics; Legge translated it 'God'. Later Confucian texts speak mostly of Tian.
Shujing (Book of Documents), Announcement of Tang ↗ - Tianming (Mandate of Heaven)天命
What Heaven decrees: the charge given to rulers and the calling given to each person.
Ascribed to Heaven. Confucius says that at fifty he understood the decrees of Heaven.
Analects 2.4 ↗ - Tian Dao (the Way of Heaven)天道
The Way of Heaven: the moral pattern of the cosmos, which the Doctrine of the Mean identifies with sincerity.
Ascribed to Heaven. 'Sincerity is the way of Heaven'; to strive for sincerity is the way of humans.
Doctrine of the Mean 20 ↗ - Heaven and Earth天地
The cosmos as a pair that covers and sustains all things, whose way is sincere and unceasing.
Ascribed to the cosmos, with which the sage forms a triad.
Doctrine of the Mean 26 ↗ - Taiyi (the Grand Unity)大一
The Great One: the primal unity from which heaven and earth, yin and yang, and the seasons divide.
The Book of Rites traces all ritual to it. Written 大一 there, equivalent to 太一.
Liji (Book of Rites), Li Yun 4.4 ↗ - Taiji (the Supreme Ultimate)太極
The Supreme Ultimate: the source of yin and yang and of all things.
Neo-Confucian (Zhou Dunyi, Zhu Xi), drawing on the Book of Changes; Zhu Xi equated it with the totality of Li.
Zhou Dunyi, Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate (reference) ↗ - Li (Principle)理
Principle: the rational, moral pattern present in every thing and in the cosmos as a whole.
Neo-Confucian (Cheng brothers, Zhu Xi); a philosophical ultimate, not a personal deity. Distinct from 禮 li, ritual.
Li in Neo-Confucianism (reference) ↗