"Chuang Tzu is not against virtue (why should he be?), but he sees that mere virtuousness is without meaning and without deep effect either in the life of the individual or in society. Once this is clear, we see that Chuang Tzu’s ironic statements about “righteousness” and “ceremonies” are made not in the name of lawless hedonism and antinomianism, but in the name of that genuine virtue which is “beyond virtuousness.” Once this is clear, one can reasonably see a certain analogy between Chuang Tzu and St. Paul. The analogy must certainly not be pushed too far. Chuang Tzu lacks the profoundly theological mysticism of St. Paul. But his teaching about the spiritual liberty of wu wei and the relation of virtue to the indwelling Tao is analogous to Paul’s teaching on faith and grace, contrasted with the “works of the Old Law.” The relation of the Chuang Tzu book to the Analects of Confucius is not unlike that of the Epistles to the Galatians and Romans to the Torah."
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Sources
Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu (1965), A Study of Chuang Tzu, 24-25.
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Zhuangzi
chinesischer Philosoph und Schriftsteller
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