[KS] Re: The God of Tonghak

[Don Baker]

I'm glad Tim Lee brought up the question of Pak Illo's use of the 
term Haneunim way back in the  middle of the Chosun dynasty. I 
discussed Pak's use of that term in an article I published well over 
a decade ago. (That article, "Felicitous Fallacy: James Gale and the 
Creation of Korean Monotheism," appeared in a conference volume from 
a linguistics conference at the University of Toronto and therefore 
has not been seen by very many people.) In that article, I argued 
that Pak, an orthodox Neo-Confucian, used  that term as a synonym for 
Ch'eon, as Neo-Confucians use that term.  As such, it resembles the 
use of haneul in the Song of Flying Dragons. In other words, it does 
not refer to an indigenous Korean deity but instead is simply a 
vernacular term for a Neo-Confucian concept imported from China.

By the way, the site where Tim Lee found that reference to Pak Illo, 
hananim.com, is an interesting site. It is not a Christian site. 
Rather, it appears to be run by people who are either members of or 
sympathetic to Taejong-gyo, the Tan'gun religion. I say that because 
several times that site mentions the scriptures of Taejong-gyo, 
including the Ch'eonbugyeong, a short text which believers claim is 
the world's oldest scripture. The point of that site appears to be to 
prove that  Koreans don't need Christians to teach them about 
Hananim, since they have known about, and worshipped, Hananim ever 
since the days of Tan'gun Choson. However, to support their claim 
that Koreans have an ancient tradition of monotheism, that site 
quotes Underwood, Gale, and Hulbert!

If anyone is interested in reading more about the claim that ancient 
Koreans were not only monotheists, but also believed in a Trinitarian 
God, see Sung-Deuk Oak's article in Vol 5, no. 1 of Acta Koreana 
(January, 2002). That article is entitled "North American 
Missionaries' Understanding of the Tan'gun and Kija Myths of Korea, 
1884-1934." An Hosang, one-time leader of Taejong-gyo, has provided 
an English-language introduction to Taejong-gyo's trinitarian 
theology.  It is available in vol 3,no. 3 of the Korean Journal, and 
also as an appendix to his Korean-language work "Baedal.Dongi kyeolye 
ui han yet yeoksa" A recent argument that  trinitarian theology has 
long been a part of Korean tradition  is Cho Chayong's Samsin Min'go, 
which came out in 1995.

-- 
Don Baker
Director, Centre for Korean Research
Associate Professor, Department of Asian Studies
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 CANADA
604-822-4478