How similar are Taoism and Christianity?

Question

The current Wikipedia article on Taoism contains a relatively prominent section devoted to arguments in favor of an alleged similarity between Taoism and Christianity.

Some authors have dealt with comparative studies between Taoism and Christianity. This has been of interest for students of history of religion such as J.J.M. de Groot, among others. The comparison of the teachings of Laozi and Jesus of Nazareth has been done by several authors such as Martin Aronson, and Toropov & Hansen, who believe that they have parallels that should not to be ignored. In the opinion of J. Isamu Yamamoto the main difference is that Christianity preaches a personal God while Theist Taoism does not. Yet, a number of authors, including Lin Yutang, have argued that some moral and ethical tenets of these religions are similar.

To my current understanding, Taoism and Christianity propose very different ideas. Taoism argues that individuality is ultimately an illusion, in Christianity individual souls are promised eternal life. Taoism is very skeptical of how much we may hope to to grasp as rational knowledge, for Christianity the logos is key. I have no doubt that one can find similar ethical rules in both, but then such rules (do not kill, etc.) are quite universal to all religions: such as similarity would be general, not specific to the two.

Am I mistaken or could it be that the current Wikipedia article is overly biased e.g. towards a Christian view on Taoism where it makes this comparison? Are the cited authors known as representatives of Christian philosophy?

UPDATE On reflection, the most significant similarity between Taoism and Christianity may be that at their cores (and perhaps more so than other religions) they cater to the poor (e.g. Christianity: so the last will be first, and the first will be last; e.g. Taoism: many historical accounts of Chinese who adopted Confucianism at the peaks of their lives and turned to Taoism after setbacks). However, this is not mentioned in the article.

Answer 1

Speaking from personal experience as a Christian with Taoist sympathies, although it's far from a mainstream line of thought in either Christian or Taoist circles, the cause of reconciling the two is well known, and has been taken up by a number of different thinkers.

Part of the motivation may come from the fact that Taoism is largely non-theistic, which makes it possible to incorporate aspects of Taoist philosophy into Christian practice (as well as many other different religious traditions), without the burden of also taking on incompatible claims about God or gods (compare Hinduism or Shintoism). Taoism also functions largely without any central prophet or Messianic figure whose authority could be considered by Christians as trespassing on that belonging to Jesus (compare Buddhism or Islam).

There is also the fact that the Tao translates most naturally as "The Way," a term which, in the Christian tradition, is claimed by Jesus ("I am the Way, the Truth and the Life"). This fact may seem coincidental, but has been taken as significant by some writers.

Answer 2

Taoism is quite different from christianity, specially in morality and ethics (i.e. considering what is right and what is wrong), since:

• In Taoism every concept appears immediately with their opposite. In christianity, there is God, and be apart from God. Most of the concepts in the Bible arise from the idea of being apart from God. An example of this is the first two chapters of the Book Of Wisdom in the bible, when referring to the people with no God.
• Have this quote: Thus being and non-being produce each other, and try telling a christian that the Devil creates God (the opposite is true). I can teach you how to block punches. You will need it.
• In Taoism, as stated in the very first "chapters" in Tao Te Ching, Tao cannot be defined (this includes: there is not intrinsic ethics arising from the main concept). Tao morality looks then no more than a guideline (subjective note: which for me and other taoists I know, is a GOOD thing; with this I remark that this is not a despective comment about the practice, but considered as a feature). In Christianity, God is Good, Benevolent, Fair, bla bla bla. Opposite concepts arise from being apart from God.
• In Taoism, there's the paradoxical concept of "no action". In Christianity, there's a constant referenct to acting, good deeds, God's plan or predestination (depending on schools).
• In Taoism, in particular chapter 38, having hope, believing, and waiting for the future is stupid (depending on the translation, the word stupidity, ignorance or confusion is used; [...] Abides in the real, and does not dwell on the flower [...]). In Christianity, a huge part of the belief is about the future rewards and punishments (Book of Wisdom chaps 1-5, and almost whole book of Apocalipsis). Most of the rewards are somehow related to power or rank (over nations, over angels, ...). Edit: The flower concept is a reference to the promise, the future. Meanwhile, Christianity (and mostly every abrahamic school, say) is deeply based (and tied to) the concept of prophecy. There's a high honor to be considered a prophet (and gained the gift of prophecy).
• In Taoism, you die and you are part again of Tao. In fact, you never stop being apart from Tao in a "literal" sense. In Christianity, you can fall apart from God.
• You have no commandment in TTK to attend a Taoist temple, or consider any Taoist church as a sacred organisation. You have no commandment to pray, but you are encouraged (or informally recommended from practitioners) to learn from the whole bunch of metaphors.
• Reality is one in Christianity. Reality is not fixed according to Chuang Tze metaphors of dreaming about being a butterfly.
• For this point I have no concrete source (others have their source in TTK and Bible as I stated), but experience: Christians often reject non-contemplative or non-God-based meditation, including activities like Qi Gong and Taiji Quan.

Here you have a source. This is always the main taoism source (it is a must-read), regardless other authors.

They can have common points, but as a practitioner I can tell it is quite different in essence.

Answer 3

"Why does everyone love the Tao so much when they first find it? Isn't it because you find what you seek, and know that your sins are forgiven?"

When I first ran across this bit from the TTC, as penned by my teacher, Gia-fu Feng in his beautiful translation (the first available in the West that was done by a native Chinese speaker), I was quite stunned by the similarity to Christian thought. You could just swap out "Jesus" for the word "Tao" there, and someone who didn't know any better might think that was a quote from the New Testament. I was particularly struck, of course, by the "and know that your sins are forgiven" bit. I asked Master Feng about this, saying, "I wasn't aware that the concept of sin existed in Taoism", to which he wittily replied, "Sure, we do bad things sometimes, too." :)

Ultimately, Master Feng and studying Taoism actually helped me with a number of issues that ultimately led me to becoming a Christian. For example, I was one of those people who was always a bit rankled by what I saw as God's arbitrary rules. Feng helped me to see things such as the Ten Commandments not as rules but simply as instructions for living life in harmony with Tao. In other words, one should see things such as the commandment, "Do not commit adultery", as merely informing you that adultery is not in harmony with the Way of Life - if you're committing adultery (or stealing or killing), then you're swimming upstream against the flow of Tao.

Just a thought (or two).

Jack Maverick

Answer 4

To argue that the ethics and morality of Taoism are similar to the Christian is a rather simplistic argument. All the great religions teach similar ethics and morality. Taoism is a non-dual tradition, very different from the monotheistic tradition of Christianity.

David Loy writes in Nonduality: A Study of Comparative Philosophy: "The first section [of Chapter 3] argues that the Taoist paradox of wei-wu-wei (the action of non-action) is a description of such nondual action. It is highly significant that the same paradox is found in the other two nondualist traditions, clearly enunciated in the Bhagavad-gita and more fully developed in the Buddhist account of the Bodhisattva's path."

Western academics consistently try to show non-Christian religions as either 'pre-Christian' in their ethics and morality, derived from Christian influences, or not up to snuff with Christian ethics and morality. There is a good book on the distortions that are done by Western academics. The book is called Invading the Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America. THe book is available as a free download here - http://rajivmalhotra.com/books/invading-sacred/

Answer 5

Taoism teaches that a way of living exists that is compatible with health and happiness. There is a great emphasis on not explicating the way, but to use intution and experience to impliment or activate it. Christianity does the same thing but can point to a incarnation of the right way -- the life of Jesus.

Answer 6

What Francis Bradley calls 'commonplace' Christianity is very unlike Taoism. To see their similarity, some would say equivalence, one would have to compare the nondual form of Christianity, ('classical' or 'gnostic' Christianity' (lower-case 'g')) of such people as Eckhart, de Cusa, David Bentley Hart. Keith Ward et al, with philosophical Taoists like Lao Tsu and Chuang Tsu.

The later 'religious' Taoism that developed some 500 years after Lao Tsu, with its Heaven and Hell, Gods and angels etc., might seem rather like ordinary dogmatic Christianity, but where Taoist writers explicitly endorse the teachings of Jesus it is the esoteric Jesus of the Gospel of Thomas, not the Jesus of the Church of England and the Protestants.

I have a book here somewhere here by a Taoist writer who uses Jesus as a model throughout and refers constantly to his teachings and stresses that Taoism is the path to becoming a True Man, thus to achieve what Jesus achieved. This would be the esoteric teaching, that our goal should be to emulate Jesus and find Truth, Reality and Immortality. If I can find the book I'll post a reference but at present it's hiding somewhere.

The complication would be the various forms of Christianity and the two main types of Taoism. But if we read A Course in Miracles, The Mystical Theology or de Cusa's On the Vision of God, it is not difficult to see the connection with Taoism.

We see that de Cusa states that God 'move and moves not, rests and rests not, is and is-not', and so forth, while Lao Tsu tells us 'True words seem paradoxical'. This is not a coincidence but evidence of a shared truth.

The topic is vast. To see the close connection between Christianity and Taoism it would be necessary to have some understanding of the principle of nonduality, and this is not something that can be acquired quickly and easily. Or not unless one has a sudden revelation.

Answer 7

C S Lewis used Tao as his example of LOGOS in another culture.

The Logos and the Dao: John C. H. Wu’s Catholic Witness to China's Spiritual Traditions. This person is the expert on both sides of that question.

Answer 8

I think a similarity between Christianity and Taoism is that the both have laws or principles such as the Ten Commandments for Christianity and The Precepts for Taoism.

Answer 9

"Taoism argues that individuality is ultimately an illusion"

where does it argues this? Individuality may end with death (I think that's Dao De Jing's point of view), but as we're alive, it is not an "illusion". We are social animals, we are part of a group, but we are individuals too (at least we are not interconnected as coral reefs).

"could it be that the current Wikipedia article is overly biased e.g. towards a Christian view on Taoism"

Lots of western translations use "God" as the word for "Dao", or use monotheistic assumptions ("eternal dao", "eternal life", "the saint", etc).

In common between the two I see:

1) "What others have teached, we also teach: 'the violent ones can't choose their own death', this is going to be our most important teaching" (DDJ 42), very similar to "who wounds with iron will be wounded by iron";

2) "they have so many goods that may waste them, those act as thieves, of course this isn't Dao" (DDJ 53) has a lot in common with "It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God".

But they have a lot more that opposes them. In "catering" the poor, the Taoist counsels to kings and princes would enrich the people. Christianity, with all its moralism, usually lets the people poorer.