A Christian Reflection on the Tao Te Ching's First Poem
A journal entry
Spring 2023
I was first inspired to read the Tao Te Ching, in 2019, after reading how C.S. Lewis employs the idea of “the Tao” in his modern Christian classic book, The Abolition of Man. To Lewis, the Tao (also translated regularly as “The Way”) represents Natural Law, represents the absolute truths that bind all pre-modern wisdom together—Judaism, Christianity, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam, traditional African religion, Hinduism, Hellenism, Celtic paganism, etc. These are widely, and wildly, varying religions, but one may easily find concrete similarities among and across all of them. This is The Tao. The fundamental law of Nature. The Way.
The Chinese speak of a great thing (the greatest thing) called the Tao. It is the reality beyond all predicates, the abyss that was before the Creator Himself. It is Nature, it is the Way, the Road. It is the Way in which the universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and tranquilly, into space and time. It is also the Way which every man should tread in imitation of that cosmic and supercosmic progression, conforming all activities to that great exemplar. “In ritual,” say the Analects, “it is harmony with Nature that is prized.”
C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
I believe the Tao is worth reflecting upon, from my Christian perspective even, and the first place to focus that reflection is upon the great Taoist classic, by Lao Tzu, the great Taoist sage: The Tao Te Ching, or, The Classic of the Way and Its Power and Virtue.
Using phrases taken from the Tao Te Ching—The Tao is the forever Way, the solid Path, the absolute Reality, the basic Principle, the constant Standard, Judge of Judges, Spring and Source, the eternal Experience.
Poem 1 of the Tao Te Ching, from the first section named the “Classic of the Way,” in my translation:
The Tao one can express Is not the eternal Tao. The name one can entitle Is not the unchanging Name. The nameless Name engendered Heaven, gods, and Earth. Then when it had a Name, it birthed Ten Thousand Things.* Live a life without vain wishes: Behold its wonders like a tower. Live with constant desire: Behold its boundaries like a wall. There are two aspects arising from one source— they have two different names: Mystery (dark!) and Meaning (light!)— A mystery amidst a mystery— A gateway to a world of wonders. 一 道可道 非常道 名可名 非常名 無名天地之始 有名萬物之母 故常無欲 以觀其妙 常有欲 以觀其徼 此兩 者同出而異名 同謂之玄 玄之又玄 衆妙之門 *The introduction in the Tao Te Ching of the concept of The Ten Thousand Things, or the many forces in the world, both physical and metaphysical, which are brought into order by and with the Tao, on which Poem 42 will expound—in its first stanza saying: “Out of the Tao [Reality] came One [Nature]./Out of the One came Two [Dark and Light]./Out of the Two came Three [Life]./Out of the Three came the Ten Thousand Things [Heaven, earth, the gods, etc.].”
The way of Nature—we can discuss. But mysteries remain, especially as pertain to the ways of God. God can be named, and His ways can be named, but only as He reveals those names to us—through His Word, through His revelation in Nature, and through our relationship with Him, which includes our spiritual being and our conscience.
God breathed, and the Heavens and the Earth became real. We do not have a word for the breath. We can only name God, the stars and planets we can see, and Mother Earth who bore us.
The way of Nature is the Tao. The Tao is hard to see, yet we must look at it. It is difficult to see inside the Tao, yet we must look inside it. When God reveals the Tao to us, then we can observe it in the World around us.
The inner workings of the Tao—God set into motion. And only partially reveals them to us in our spiritual lives. The outer workings of the Tao are evident in Nature, as God made so. Yet both the Tao’s inner and outer workings remain mysteries. We should pursue the outer workings through science and the inner workings through reflection. Yet the mystery remains.
The mystery is a veil. One day we will see through it.
Genesis 1:1-4: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.
Romans 1:20: God’s invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that God made.
1 Corinthians 13:12: For now, we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.
John 1:1-5: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
@Joshua Miller, here is a little something I wrote a couple years ago in line with your project!
Two thoughts: The earliest Christians were called “followers of the Way,” and there are echoes of this in the gospels, which talk of Jesus being “in the way,” usually referring to his path to Jerusalem (for a good example, see Mark 10:32. The gospels are partially organized around this idea, of the Way Jesus led up during the last week of His life from Bethany to His Passion in Jerusalem being especially important. This is the path of Holy Week. It’s a culmination. And it’s also symbolic for Christians, who are to take the literal Way Jesus trod and apply it to their lives in a spiritual and ritual sense. “Take up your cross and follow Me.”
It’s the path that leads up and through the suffering of life and ends in the rending of the veil, a personal knowing of God through Christ.
We know God when we partake of the things He has shown us—the way, the truth, and the life.
The second thing that stood out to me is this emphasis on creation through naming. The ancient Hebrews understood something very like that. Things were not fully created until they were separated, organized, and named. This is the fundamental principle of the Genesis account. And Adam was invited to partake in creation through naming. In the NT, then, we become reborn when we take upon us the name of Christ. We are recreated and brought to a new order, separated from the world.