Immanent Transcendence and the Basic Character of Confucianism from the Perspective of Modern New Confucianism

“Immanent Transcendence” is a landmark concept put forward by modern New Confucian scholars including Tang Junyi and Mou Zongsan, which delineates the fundamental ideological character of Confucianism as a religious system. Today, this concept has transcended the intellectual context of modern New Confucianism and become a prevalent paradigm for characterizing the features of Confucianism and even traditional Chinese culture. Nevertheless, this widely accepted notion has sustained persistent and in-depth critiques. Three major critical approaches have taken shape in academic circles revolving around the theory of immanent transcendence, all centering on the relationship between Heaven and humanity. This paper intends to respond to these critiques. By reviewing the main debates, it focuses on the Heaven–human relationship—the central theme of the theory of immanent transcendence—and, by introducing Zhu Xi’s mode of thinking, offers a theoretical defense of the legitimacy of the concept of “immanent transcendence”, pointing out that it is a signature concept that can be used to describe the basic intellectual character formed in the development of Confucianism by the Song–Ming period.