Why Sacrifice?—Early Confucianism’s Reinterpretation of Sacrificial Rites and Human–Guishen (鬼神, Spirits and Deities) Relations Through Qing (情, Sentiment)

This paper examines how early Confucianism reinterpreted sacrificial rites and reconstructed the relationship between humans and spirits through the lens of qing (情, sentiment). Traditional scholarship often views the Confucian reinterpretation of sacrifice as a shift from religious belief to a human-centered framework of rationality, morality, and humanism—emphasizing its role in moral education and social governance and thereby marginalizing or even denying the existence of guishen (鬼神, spirits and deities) and the transcendent realm they represent. Although some scholars have emphasized the religious dimensions of Confucianism, few have addressed how Confucians managed to affirm the existence of spirits while simultaneously endowing sacrificial rites with moral and humanistic meaning—that is, how they navigated the inherent tension between the human and the divine realms. Against this background, this study argues that early Confucians neither denied the existence of spirits nor reduced sacrifice to a purely ethical or political instrument. By contrast, they regarded human sentiment as the universal foundation of sacrificial practice and, through a profound and creative transformation, redirected the meaning of sacrifice toward the human world (rendao 人道), thereby establishing a new model of human–divine relations—one that affirms human agency and dignity while preserving the sanctity of the spiritual. Drawing on close readings of classical Confucian texts such as The Analects, The Book of Rites, and Xunzi, this paper identifies three core dimensions of sacrificial sentiment: remembrance, gratitude, and reverence and awe. Together, these sentiments form a relational structure between humans and guishen that enables communication and interaction while maintaining clear boundaries. In this way, Confucian sacrificial rites become a space for emotional expression without degenerating into a “carnival of emotions” or transgressing the proper separation between the human and the divine. Confucian sacrificial thought thus affirms human dignity and moral agency while upholding the transcendence of the sacred.