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Tao Te Ching · 74 of 81 · tr. James Legge

Chapter 74

The people do not fear death; to what purpose is it to (try to) frighten them with death? If the people were always in awe of death, and I could always seize those who do wrong, and put them to death, who would dare to do wrong? There is always One who presides over the infliction death. He who would inflict death in the room of him who so presides over it may be described as hewing wood instead of a great carpenter. Seldom is it that he who undertakes the hewing, instead of the great carpenter, does not cut his own hands!
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Themes
Divine Providencetheology

Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.

The text explicitly acknowledges a singular power that presides over the infliction of death, implying a divine ordering of human fate.

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Paradox As Teachingethics

Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.

The metaphor of the carpenter and the wood-hewer uses a counter-intuitive image to convey that usurping divine authority leads to self-destruction.

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Wu Weipraxis

Effortless action aligned with the spontaneous flow of the Dao; non-coercive, non-striving conduct that yields results without forcing — the sage acts without acting.

[auto] The passage centrally advises rulers against coercive punishment and interference with the natural order of life and death, embodying the principle of non-action.

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Related passages · 4 parallels
neoplatonism|Iamblichus: On the Mysteries|Chapter XXVII-a
“Moreover, neither is it sufficient to assert, “ that nature, art, and the sympathy of things in the universe, as if they were the parts of one animal, contain premanifestations of certain 188 things with reference to each other; nor that bo…”
Shared concept: Divine Providence — Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity. (derived)
neoplatonism|Select Works of Plotinus|Select Works, Section 203 (part 1)
“Section 16 16. But if all this is true, what room is left for evil? Where are we to place wrong-doing and sin? How explain that in a world organized in good, the efficient agents [human beings] behave unjustly, commit sin? And how comes…”
Shared concept: Divine Providence — Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity. (derived)
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Mystical Theology|Chapter V-a
“That He Who is the Pre-eminent Cause of everything intelligibly perceived is not Himself any one of the things intelligibly perceived. Once more, ascending yet higher we maintain 537 537 It is not (1) a Thinking Subject; nor (2) an Act or…”
Shared concept: Paradox As Teaching — Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight. (derived)
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 11, Section 1f
“472 Contemplation, Act of Contemplation, and Object Contemplated are all united together, and so imply a fundamental Unity which exists ultimately in God. 473 Cf. p. 174, n. 3. 474 D.‘s paradox is the paradox of sanity. We must hold a…”
Shared concept: Paradox As Teaching — Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight. (derived)