Chinese thinker compares Eastern and Western Thought

From Jeff J Brown

Table of Contents

Essay
English translation
Christians, Teach Yourselves
Now, onto the main text.
1) Truth and Freedom: How to attain? How to correct?
2) Ontology: Who is “self-existent and eternal”?
3) Ethics: Can love and grace be “visible”?
Recommended Reading (previous essays):

Essay
Original Chinese: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/XajA60aZ4ZBKP2vXZyIFdA (more recommended reading at the end)

English translation

Christians, Teach Yourselves

Yesterday’s article — “Who Is Closer to Faith: Laozi or Confucius?” — was, as expected, not recommended by the algorithm, resulting in extremely low readership. However, I received one private message in response — over 2,000 words long.

Judging by its tone, it was written by a Christian, addressed to Yang Peng, attempting to encourage him and rationalize his Christian stance.

I actually believe Yang Peng is a decent person — at the very least, he is not one of those “Western History Fundamentalists,” nor is he an orthodox Christian suffering from what I call “Bible-itis.” I suspect he is, like I was several years ago, a “cultural Christian.” His tendency to tie everything he discusses back to “God” or similar concepts reflects, I think, the same impulse I once had — to anchor an ideal social order in an eternal, supreme source.

But I must refute him — precisely because I sense he, like my former self, is sincerely doing harm: leading countless people, especially intellectuals, down the wrong path, all under the delusion of good intentions.

Below, I’ll respond to this private message paragraph by paragraph.

Before replying, let me first introduce a concept from physics — wave-particle duality.

The world is composed of fundamental particles, yet wave-particle duality experiments reveal this: particles do not fundamentally exist. They are originally formless, intangible waves. Only when human consciousness intervenes does the wave function collapse, forming what we perceive as particles. In other words, without human consciousness, the so-called “world” is formless and intangible.

A formless, intangible world is naturally without good or evil, without love or hate, without birth or death, without purity or defilement, without increase or decrease. Concepts like “piety,” “pride,” “grace,” “redemption,” “finitude,” or “dependence” simply do not apply. It is precisely human consciousness — with all its conceptual interference — that collapses the originally pure, formless, eternal, and infinite into the chaotic, material world we call “the mortal realm.”

Now, onto the main text.

Author “Why This Life”: Epistemologically, he treats “inner intuitive certainty” as the source of truth, lacking any publicly verifiable or correctable pathway.

“Inner intuition” refers to Laozi’s phrase: “Attain the utmost emptiness; hold fast to profound stillness. All things arise together, yet each returns to its root.” This state Laozi describes is essentially one where human consciousness does not interfere — in quantum terms, it avoids wave function collapse, preserving the wave’s original state: undefiled, unborn, undying, unchanging. This is not the “source” of truth — it is truth itself. Add even the slightest conceptual overlay, and it is no longer truth.

Ontologically, he equates “self-nature” with “self-existent and eternal,” essentially anthropomorphizing divinity (deifying the created human mind), which contradicts the evident finitude and dependence of human reality.

“Self-nature” is Huineng’s term — essentially the same mental state Laozi describes as “attaining emptiness and holding stillness.” This state — unborn, undying, undefiled, unchanging — is what religious believers mythologize as the “state of God.” As for “finitude and dependence in reality,” these are obsessions held by religious adherents and ordinary people alike. Such fixations only deepen the chaos of the “particle-world” — the material realm.

Ethically, he devalues “faith” and “revelation,” thereby evading the public visibility of love and grace (love as responsibility toward the other; grace as reaching out toward sin and suffering). His system thus resembles an “inner cultivation self-salvation technique,” rather than a “law of love” capable of producing publicly observable fruits in the shared world.

“Faith” is the misuse of ordinary people’s innate desire for goodness. Shenxiu’s famous line — “The body is the Bodhi tree” — exemplifies the mindset of “faith.” “Revelation,” meanwhile, is a kind of spiritual illness born of unfulfilled longing and self-suggestion. “Love and grace” are spiritual subprime crises — distortions that arise after human consciousness collapses the truth-wave into particles, then misinterprets and propagates these distortions.

Comparison with Christian Truth Order (Key Points of Victory/Defeat)
1) Truth and Freedom: How to attain? How to correct?

Author’s approach: Inner intuition = truth. Problem: It is neither falsifiable nor shareable — if you claim “I am inherently complete,” why should others agree? When two “self-realized sages” disagree, who adjudicates?

When several believers all claim to be “filled with the Holy Spirit,” how do you falsify that? How do you share it (aside from psychiatric self-suggestion)? Who adjudicates (aside from the pastor collecting tithes)?

Christian principle: Truth transcends the individual (not determined by personal will) yet can be witnessed and tested within history and community — “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Revelation and reason, conscience and community, mutually correct each other, forming a verifiable, self-correcting epistemology.

This so-called “Christian principle” is merely the misuse of ordinary people’s desire for goodness. Shenxiu’s “The body is the Bodhi tree” represents the realm of faith; “revelation” is a spiritual illness born of unfulfilled longing and self-suggestion. “The true God has no form; self-nature is inherently complete. Chanting ‘Amen’ through sights and sounds — clinging to delusion, never awakening.”

Victory: The Christian principle wins on “public verifiability” and “corrective mechanisms.” The author’s approach easily slides into incommunicable monologue or “spiritual aristocracy.”

This so-called “communicable” Christian principle is merely a collectively induced spiritual illness. “Love and grace” are spiritual subprime crises — distortions arising after human consciousness collapses the truth-wave into particles, then misinterprets and propagates these distortions.
2) Ontology: Who is “self-existent and eternal”?

Author asserts: Human “self-nature” is self-existent and eternal.

Logical conflict: Human birth, growth, aging, cognitive development, and decline after injury all manifest dependence and finitude.

Only after ordinary consciousness collapses waves into particles do “human bodies” and “the world” appear — along with dependence and finitude. Believers obsess over and debate the “particle-world,” while yearning for the “wave-world” (the divine), yet they never find the gate — instead, their self-righteous piety leads them further astray.

Causal inquiry: If “self-nature is self-existent,” why do humans experience ignorance, require learning, and undergo change? In classical theology, “self-existent and eternal” exclusively describes the uncreated, self-sufficient God. Applying it to finite minds is a categorical error.

Answer: Same as above.

Christian principle: The Creator-creature distinction preserves human dignity (made in God’s image) and human limitation (requiring truth and grace).

The concept of “Creator” is the most stubborn and delusional form of idolatry. “God is spirit; worship Him in spirit.” Yet not a single believer has ever seriously contemplated: What is “spirit”?

Victory: Christian ontology is more coherent. The author’s deification of humanity simultaneously elevates humans beyond verification and hollows out moral responsibility (if “I am inherently pure,” whence comes evil?).

The prohibition against idolatry is perhaps this religion’s most valuable insight — tragically, in practice, it completely cuts off believers from walking this righteous path. They fail to realize that “God,” “Scripture,” “Lord” — these concepts themselves are the most stubborn “idols.”
3) Ethics: Can love and grace be “visible”?

The author devalues language and revelation, emphasizing “inner verification.” Ethically, this easily degenerates into private cultivation. The maxim “All things are complete within me” lacks external constraint regarding “the suffering of others” (if I am already complete, why must I humble myself to serve?).

Anyone who understands even slightly Wang Yangming’s lines — “No good, no evil — the mind’s essence; Good and evil arise with intention; Knowing good and evil is conscience; Doing good and removing evil is investigation of things” — would never say, “If I am already complete, why must I humble myself to serve?”

Christian principle: Love and grace must externalize into publicly visible actions (healing, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, charity, sacrifice) and be subject to communal witness and historical verification (“By their fruits you shall know them”). Christian ethics triumphs in being “other-centered,” “historically visible,” and “communally verifiable.” Inner, solitary cultivation rarely generates verifiable public good.

It is only after ordinary consciousness collapses waves into particles that concepts like “healing, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, charity, sacrifice” arise — all of them, frankly, obsessive constructs. Believers obsess over and debate the “particle-world,” while yearning for the “wave-world” (the divine), yet they never find the gate — instead, their self-righteous piety leads them further astray.

There is much more to come, but essentially all of it consists of obsessive notions confined within the “particle-world,” all answerable by the paragraph above.

Actually, the “Bible” contains several worthwhile insights — for example: “Do not worship idols”; “God is spirit; worship Him in spirit”; “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s”; the Ten Commandments. But these precious insights are drowned in oceans of supernatural superstition, so that nearly all believers become self-righteous people walking crooked paths.

Rather than scold them uselessly, I offer Wang Yangming’s Four-Line Teaching for the intelligent believer to contemplate:

No good, no evil — the mind’s essence (the divine realm)

Good and evil arise with intention (discriminating good and evil)

Knowing good and evil is conscience (Ten Commandments, Eight Beatitudes)

Doing good and removing evil is investigation of things (holy living)

Believers, if you wish to verify this, it’s simple: Sit quietly with closed eyes for half an hour. As long as you don’t fall asleep, you will inevitably glimpse what is truly the “Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Though you may only glimpse it, you will have seen the entrance to the “narrow gate” — incomparably different from your usual spiritual babble.