创造神话:中西不同 Ancient West Did Not Meet East: Creation Myths

神话是人类对其所处的世界的关系所持有的最初的看法。大多的神话讲述的是人格神与女神控制人类与自然界。

对古代希腊人来说，大地母亲生产了神灵与人类。而神灵转过来控制人类与所有自然事务，包括水灾与饥荒。有了更高力量的控制，西方的世界观明显的把神灵界与人类世界分开，并产生了心灵二元的思维。

古代希腊哲学家亚里士多德把心物二元的观念深根蒂固地注入西方的思维内。他强调在学习自然世界时把个别物理元素分开来，而这个强调就把人类放在我们所处的环境的观察者的地位上，而不是世界的一部分。

但是，华人没有创造神话 - 中文里本来也没有这个词语。中国人的世界是造化，造而化之；造与化是一枚硬币的两面。

古代中国人认为人与世界不是被创造出来的，在以它们为主要构成特征的自发的、持续自我造化的宇宙并没有创造者、上帝、最终原因、或外在意志。其最高力量并不是分开的或高高在上的天上的统治者，而一切都包含在众生与万物之中。

对华人来说，并没有一个最高存在者在改变世界，改变本身是‘存在’的自然的、给定的条件，是创造的运作。神灵与人类或人类与自然界之间没有分别。它们是不可分辨的一个整体。

就是这些基本概念使到东亚人的世界观不同于西方。

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Creation myths are the first real glimpses into how humanity first viewed itself in relation to the world around us. Most of these myths tell of an anthropomorphic god, goddess, or gods and goddesses that ruled over humanity and all of nature.

For the ancient Greeks, Mother Earth was the primal force giving birth to deities and human alike. These deities, in turn, ruled over the realm of humanity controlling all natural events from flood to famine. With higher powers in charge, the Western view of the world was distinctly split between the realm of the divine and the realm of humanity, with created a dualism of thoughts as well.

It was the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle who firmly entrenched this dualism of mind and matter into Western thought. He emphasised the study of the natural world into its individual physical components, and this emphasis placed humanity in the role of observer of the world around it and not necessarily as a participant of that world.

However, Chinese do not have creation myths – and there is no Chinese term for it. The Chinese world is known as Zaohua, i.e. create (zao) it and change (hua) it, creation and change are two sides of a coin.

The ancient Chinese have regarded the world and man as uncreated, as constituting the central features a spontaneously self-generating cosmos having no creator, god, ultimate cause, or will external to it. Thus, the natural world and humans are one and only part of a larger, ever-flowing continuum of creation. The supreme force was not separate and above them, as a ruling deity in heaven, but was within and without them, all encompassing and all-inclusive.

For Chinese, there was not ultimate Being bringing about change in the world, it was simply a given and natural condition of existence, the workings of creation. There was also not clear distinction between the divine and humanity or humanity and nature. They were the inseparable part of a whole.

It is this fundamental conception that sets the Chinese world view apart from that of the West.