Secular Reason as a Tool of the Early Jesuit Mission to China

This paper provides an investigation into Jesuits’ use of secular dialectical strategies during the early part of their evangelization mission in China. In order to prove the relevance of rhetoric stratagems – i. e. scientific verification, logic and universalism of norms – in their attack against Buddhism, this article examines a neglected text, Posthumous Disputes (Bianxue yidu 辯學遺牘). While the Posthumous Disputes (PD) was improperly attributed to Ricci, it is a prime example of Ricci’s accommodation method. Documenting the first real confrontation between a Buddhist and a Christian in China, this text provides an extraordinary window into the first dispute between Europe and China. The secular method of accommodation modelled by Ricci to convert Chinese literati was grounded in the universality of reason that he inherited from Aristotle and Aquinas and the fascination with Western science and techniques. The author uses the universality of reason to both reject Buddhism and Daoism as irrational, unscientific, and non-universal and to present the Christian faith as the most rational doctrine.