To Become a God

Puett, M 2002, To become a god: cosmology, sacrifice, and self-divinization in early China, Harvard University Press, Harvard.

How to understand the relationship between humans and heaven in early China. Max Weber focuses on the development of rationality, so he understands early Chinese thought through this perspective (p. 7). Feng Youlan believes the feature of Chinese thought is correlative thinking (p. 10). In a word, past literature has two paradigms on early China: (1) China has a this-worldly spirit (Weber); (2) China has transcendence (Jaspers) (pp. 11-13). The author says we should come back to the context per se (pp. 24-25). The author argues that early Chinese thought emphasizes self-cultivation for the purpose of self-divination (pp. 26-27). 

In the Shang dynasty, China started with a rupture between God and humans (rather than continuity). "Accordingly, humans had to, within the limits of their powers, use rituals to place these spirits in a hierarchical system. in which (it was hoped) the spirits would further the interests of the living. " (p.53) "What we can reconstruct of Bronze Age religion reveals a highly agonistic world in which humans were constantly trying to force impulsive divine powers into roles defined by the living and to convince them to act accordingly. " (p.78)