Abstract:

Yang Tingyun, a Chinese convert of the Catholic Church, expressed his system of theological philosophy which was called Confiician monotheism in his writings, in accordance with the way of synthesis between Christianity and Confucianism advocated by his Jesuitical teacher. The Confucian monotheism, deviating from the Neo - Confucian tradition on some fundamental points of cosmology and values, constituted a new trend of thought together with the Western theological philosophy introduced by missionaries. This new trend of thought, however, does not have a proper orientation in the history of Chinese philosophy up to now. For one thing, people tend to evaluate its significance in the vision of the Confucian tradition.

Key words: Yang Tingyun, Confucian monotheism, Confucian tradition