Abstract

Discussion of the relationship between chance and necessity in the West goes back at least to Democritus in the fifth century BCE, and was highlighted again in the twentieth century by Jacques Monod in Chance and Necessity. Monod contrasted “teleonomic‘ biological evolution with “teleologic‘ Biblical theology. This article uses that distinction in examining Zhu Xi’s concepts of Heaven and tradition. The result sheds light on the unique combination of rationality and transcendence in Neo-Confucian thought.