The Ma Xiangbo Religious Thought

Ma Xiangbo was a famous catholic believer in modern history of China. Under the situations of greatly changed social background and enhanced exchange between Sino-western cultures in China's modern society, among which religion was one controversial aspect. As a devout catholic believer who is knowledgeable with China and west, Ma had to shoulder two major tasks:one was to restate the essence and function of religion; based on this, the other was to make evaluations of Chinese original religions and culture. These two aspects complement each other in the aim of making contributions for the development of China's society.The paper mainly includes four parts, chapter one is a brief introduction of Ma Xiangbo himself and his life experiences from childhood to old. He received a Catholic family education and traditional Chinese culture education in his childhood. He received the education of western catholic theology (including Thomas Aquinas'theological thought, Matteo Ricci's The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven and redemption view of semi-Pelagianism) and science in his youth.his later life was the use stage of his religious thought.Chapter two introduces Ma's catholic theological thoughts and how he made contributions to China's society with his catholic theological thoughts. Ma's theological thoughts were mainly about his understanding of "God". And in four aspects we can see how Ma had catholic theological thoughts blended into the development of China's society:one is his God-I-Constitutionalism theory. The second is his "religious freedom" theory. The third is his idea of improving national characteristics. The fourth is his "governed by the people" thinking.Chapter three introduces Ma's religious views. In nature, his religious views were based on catholic theology. Above all is the nature of religion. The other is the relationship between religion and freedom. The third is the relationship between religion and superstition. The fourth is the relationship between religion and philosophy as well as science. Also in this part he raised his opinions upon Darwin's evolutionism as well as social Darwinism. The fifth part was Ma's perspectives upon Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.Chapter four is an evaluation of Ma Xiangbo's religious thought, including the character and impact of his religious thought. Ma Xiangbo's religious thought has four major features, first, feature of its theology. Second, characteristics of local theology. The third characteristics in modern times. The fourth, international features. Ma Xiangbo's religious thought impact has three aspects, including for himself, for the Catholic Church and the modern Chinese society.