22 苍 苍 之 谓 天 。 运 转 周 流 不 已 ， 便 是 那 个 。 而 今 说 天 有 个 人 在 那 里 批 判 罪 恶 ， 固 不 可 ； 说 道 全 无 主 之 者 ， 又 不 可 。 这 里 要 人 见 得 。 □ 。 又 □ 问 经 传 中 「 天 」 字 。 曰 ： 「 要 人 自 看 得 分 晓 ， 也 有 说 苍 苍 者 ， 也 有 说 主 宰 者 ， 也 有 单 训 理 时 。 」
big5:
籥 籥 ぇ 孔 ぱ 笲 锣 ㏄ 瑈 ぃ 獽 琌 ê 虹 τ さ 弧 ぱ Τ 虹 ê 柑 у 竜 碿 ㏕ ぃ 弧 笵 礚 ぇ ぃ 硂 柑 璶 ǎ 眔 狗 狗 拜 竒 肚 い ぱ り 璶 眔 だ 惧 Τ 弧 籥 籥 Τ 弧 甠 Τ 虫 癡 瞶
The blue empyrean which is called Tian and which turns and flows endlessly, is just that. Now to say that there is a man in Tian who judges offenses assuredly will not do, but to say that the Way has nothing at all that acts as its master will also not do. This is something that people must see.
-- Xian
Also, Xian asked about the word Tian as it appears in the classics and in commentaries. [Zhu Xi] said, "This requires that people themselves discriminate clearly. There are times when it refers to the blue empyrean, there are times when it refers to the ruler (i.e., the ruling function) [of the universe], and there are times when it stands for li without having any other implications."
Commentary:
The word I have translated as "ruler" here (zhu zai) was first used in a philosophical context by Zhuang Zi. Zhuang Zi was trying to understand how it is that living things act purposively. He questioned whether the purposive behavior of an organism emerges from the synergistic interaction of its several organs, or whether there is a specific organ whose function is to rule the rest. That inquiry is probably a sub-text for this conversation between Zhu Xi and his students.
Sometimes Tian just refers to the sky. People imagine that there is a large, judgemental human-like creature living in the sky, but Zhu Xi will not accept that anthropocentric way of accounting for portents, disasters, and other notable occurrences. But there is something that functions in some ways that are analogous to the way human rulers perform their functions, that is probably why humans conceive of a heavenly ruler, and Zhu Xi affirms that events occur in the universe in a law-like way. So there is a figurative "ruler," and beyond that there are just rules, or perhaps what we would call the "laws of nature."
The problem that lies hidden behind this brief discussion is similar to the one that plagued Plato. Humans begin understanding the universe by analogy to what is clearest to them. They know that they have intentions, that their intentions are generally not capricious, and that they can act on these intentions to produce changes in the outside world. So the first approximation they make to understanding why major changes appear in the outside world, why there are floods and other disasters for instance, is that there is a creature of cosmic dimensions who pours water on the world, shakes its very foundations, and so forth. But if that idea is found wanting, then one may conceive of a world of perfection, or a world of perfect plans for things, and one may argue that our world is an imperfect derivitive of it. Then the question becomes, how do we explain the connection between the perfect world and the imperfect world? To bring the discussion back to Zhu Xi, how can he abandon the idea of "a man in Tian who judges offenses" and still assert that there is a law-giving or regularity producing Tian that does not have the impulses of an organism to motivate it and the physical body of an organism to act on and change the things of this world?
In other words, if li are regularities or else the rules for those regularities (the way our genetic structures are the plans according to which our bodies take form), then who or what carries out these rules and regulations? Does Heaven have a mind to do this or that? Does Heaven have intentions? And if Heaven is not an organism, then how does it do anything? How can change in the universe be explained? It is clear that change occurs, and it is clear that it is often enough not chaotic that humans are persuaded that what appears to be chaotic may be so only because they fail to see the big picture.
If one denies that "the Way has nothing at all that acts as its master," then what does one put in place of this mistaken idea? How do we get from "rules" to "ruler" or "ruler-like function"?
The only place that suggested itself to the Chinese philosophers of this period as a place to look for an explanation was the Yi Jing. The historical core of this "Book of Changes" was a set of instructions for operations to perform that would help one clarify uncertainties. It has almost universally been characterized as a fortune-telling text. But it does not offer to tell anybody what will or must happen in the future. Instead, it offers a reading on the dynamic balances involved in the subject under inquiry, and, armed with this information one may choose to avoid a situation in which overwhelming antagonistic forces are involved, or to throw in one's own strength in a situation that is evenly balanced between two possible outcomes.
The procedure for taking a reading on the current situation under investigation involves a process that was at a very early time interpreted as recapitulating its ontogenic structure. One finds out what is in the wind by symbolically recreating the current situation -- in the laboratory, as it were. That procedure is the one described in the Yi Jing for "casting a hexagram." It is a rather long and tedious procedure, too long to describe here. The important thing to keep in mind is that this procedure for "recreating" the universe provided a model to use to undertand the way the real universe came into being and is sustained in being. So, when Zhu Xi says, "There are times when [Tian] refers to the blue empyrean, there are times when it refers to the ruler (i.e., the ruling function) [of the universe], and there are times when it stands for li without having any other implications," he is indirectly pointing to three strata of meaning related to the "why" of the universe. There is the sky, the "heavens," and at one time people imagined there to be a human-like deity living in the sky. There are "rules" or "regulations" or "li", things that define the regularities that we find in nature. And then there is this strange and very hard to account for "ruling function", a purposive behavior that occurs without there being an organism for us to use to account for it.
Zhu Xi may be following the teaching method of Confucius here, giving the student "one corner" of a phenomenon and waiting for the student to come back with at least enough more to let the teacher know that the student has thoroughly digested what he has been given.