In this blog post, we will look at how Jaeil theory interpreted the relationship between heaven and man and how it influenced East Asian politics and culture.
The representative discussion in East Asia that explains natural phenomena and human affairs in terms of causal relationships is the theory of disasters. The theory of disasters was systematized by combining the theory of heavenly retribution, which states that the heavens reprimand and punish a monarch who has lost virtue, with the theory of heavenly-human correspondence, which states that the heavens and humans are mutually responsive through the yin and yang energy common to humans and the heavens. According to him, when a monarch commits a mistake, the heavens respond by sending him signs such as droughts, floods, eclipses, and solar and lunar eclipses. These signs are a warning to the monarch that his authority comes from the heavens.
This basic concept of re이론 has become an important framework for explaining the relationship between politics and natural phenomena in East Asian societies. According to the theory, the actions of a monarch who goes against the will of heaven inevitably lead to disaster, which was interpreted as a warning message from heaven to humans. Therefore, the monarch felt the need to reflect on and improve his or her way of governing through 재이론. This served as a methodology for achieving political stability and social harmony.
The dual nature of Jae-il provided an excuse for the vassals to participate in political discussions, and when Jae-i occurred, it was embodied in the tradition of the monarch seeking direct advice and the vassals responding to it. However, the individual response method of explaining the relationship between human affairs as the cause and Jae-i as the result by matching them one-to-one after Dongjongseo was evaluated as being too far-fetched. This method has led to a tendency to prophesy, creating a trend of interpreting the affairs of human affairs as signs of the times and the affairs of human affairs as the result of the times, and it has also been used as a pretext for the monarch to suppress his subjects who directly express their opinions on the grounds that they have misled the people with their words.
Since then, the prophetic interpretation of Jae has been criticized and the theory of divine response has also been denied. However, the Jae theory has not disappeared from the political scene. By the Song Dynasty, Zhu Xi had accepted the tendency to not consider eclipses as a sign of the eclipse, which had become predictable due to the development of astronomy, and considered eclipses to be natural phenomena that could not be fundamentally explained by reason. However, even at that time, the abolition of the theory of eclipses, which had provided an opportunity for safe speech activities by encouraging the monarch to take an active response to eclipses, was a loss of a useful political mechanism from the perspective of the subjects.
For this reason, he adhered to the theory of rei to find an appropriate way to be wary of the monarch. Instead of responding to rei individually, he proposed a general response theory that if the monarch accumulates faults and mistakes, the heavens will respond and unusual natural phenomena will occur, and he concluded that rei is a matter of cultivating the mind of the monarch, extending the historical life of the theory of rei. This led to the re-theory going beyond the explanation of simple natural phenomena and serving as an important standard for regulating the moral responsibility and political behavior of monarchs.
The influence of re-theory did not stop at the political realm. It created a trend of emphasizing moral norms throughout society and had a great impact on education and culture. For example, schools have strengthened their ethics education based on re-theory, and narrative structures and themes influenced by re-theory frequently appear in literary works. This cultural diffusion has established re-theory as an important idea that is widely accepted and understood throughout society, beyond mere political theory.
In addition, the re-theory contributed to the scientific thinking and understanding of natural phenomena at the time. Attempts were made to analyze and predict natural phenomena by referring to the re-theory in various academic fields such as astronomy and meteorology, which became an important foundation for the development of science in East Asia. These academic developments provided valuable knowledge to later researchers and remain examples of the re-theory’s lasting influence.
In conclusion, the re-theory was an important theory that systematically explained the relationship between politics and nature, humans and heaven in East Asia. It went beyond simply defining the relationship between the monarch and the subjects, and played a role in promoting moral norms and academic development throughout society. The influence of the re-theory remains an important research topic for many researchers today, and it occupies an important position in the history of East Asian thought.
