On the first step of ‘Chinese Irrationality’: early Christian definition of Buddhism as a useless doctrine in late Ming China

It is usually acknowledged that since Colonialist times, Asian ways of thinking were described as weak, irrational, immoral, and thus different and inferior to western ones (see Said). However, this secular–not religious–definition of weakness was already fully in display during the second half of the Seventeenth and early Eighteenth century, when missionary materials became easily available and the “Chinese rites controversy” blew up, overturning Jesuit appraisal of Confucian wisdom. What we want to show in this article is that seeds of this deprecation are already apparent in Ricci's accommodation method, which is evident when we focus on the rejection of Buddhism rather than the more renowned appreciation of Confucianism. In a quite neglected Jesuit text composed in late Ming China, i.e. Posthumous Disputes (Bianxue yidu 辯學遺牘), we can read a Christian rejection of Buddhist pillars based on perfectly secular probative arguments, instead of aspects we could assume as typically Christian, namely the power of revelation, grace, love, miracles and spirituality. Buddhism is to be expelled from China because of its irrationality, illogicality and uselessness. Buddhist doctrine completely lacks empirical verification. Furthermore, Buddhist principles are against the good ruling of a country. According to our opinion, this description of Buddhism already discloses the reasons for the later rejection of all Chinese ways of thinking–Confucianism included–which we used to date to the late Enlightenment and particularly the Colonialist epoch, as for instance in Hegelism and Kantism.