無論是東方或西方古代社會，宗教信仰與政治信仰二者的關係都是相輔相成的；尤以中國古代殷周時期，宗教與政治的信仰、權力、組織、制度更是合為一體。筆者的興趣與關注，正是周初宗教人文轉向的課題。周室承繼殷權的宗教文化傳統，從祭祀天神、地衹、鬼靈、祖宗等現象出發，透過一套象徵系統的詮釋方式，傳達出一種對宇宙、人事獨特的理解與信念。然而，夏、殷之例不遠，僅以祭祀、占卜等活動尚不足以「祈天永命」來確保國祚久安，故強調「敬德」的主體修養活動以彌補宗教活動的不足；周室遂以此信仰體系為背景，經由「敬」的自我省察工夫，把對超越界的崇敬與追尋，回返到主體對自我的覺知與省察，神秘的宗教性格遂轉化為「敬德」價值理性的生發，「敬德」與「服天命」或「受天命」之間自始產生了聯結，兩者形成了緊密的因果關係：前為因，後為果；這有效地說明天命屬意周室的正當性。此時，「天命有德→敬德保民→祈天永命」三者恰好結成牢固的繩索，「敬德」成了國祚久安的必要條件，開顯出全新的、倫理的、道德的人文面相。 　　周初宗教人文轉向的關鍵處就是，周公等人以人民根植在祭祀、占卜活動中對超越界的情感為基礎，把一貫的宗教情操巧妙地轉移至「德」價值本體上；在周公等人自覺意識的作用下，神人關係的宗教情操順利地轉化為道德情操，周初宗教精神自此一大躍進，展現了新的宗教精神，從而指點出它的道德與倫理向度；宗教理性與人文理性因而結合、消融，人文意義與價值自始受到重視與肯認。職是之故，筆者擬以周初「天命觀」與「敬德」價值理性二者互為辯證的關係為進路，從二者的形成、關連與作用面切入，分別描述周初宗教人文化的歷史進程，並就其統貫之理作一系統性的闡述。 / The relations between the religious and political beliefs are complementary either in the eastern or eastern society which beliefs, authorities, organization, systems were combined into a whole especially during the Ying-Chou period of the ancient China. The writer's interests and concerns are rightly focused on “the humanistic turn of the early Chou religion”. The Chou empire inherited the religious, cultural tradition from Ying authority, starting out from the phenomena of worshiping the heaven deity, earth deity, ghosts, ancestral spirits and expressed an unique understanding, belief for the cosmos and the living world through the interpretative way of a set of symbolic system. Whereas, that the examples of Shia, Ying authorities went just ahead made Chou empire realized that only relying on the worshiping, divining activities was insufficient to “appealing to the heaven for the eternal life of nation”; hence, they proclaimed further the subjective deed― “respecting virtue” ―for supplementing the deficiency of religious activities; given that, the Chou turned its outwardly respecting and searching for the transcendent back to the inwardly subjective awareness and introspection on self, grounded on the inherited belief system, by way of the introspective work “respecting” of self that resulted in the transformation from the mystic, religious characters into the arising of the value-ration of “respecting value”. Thus, there was connection between “respecting virtue” and “obeying the heaven's destiny”, “accepting the heaven's destiny”; the former the cause, the later the effect. The close causation occurred within them that effectively explained the legitimacy of the bestowed destiny from heaven on Chou. At this time, “the heaven bestowing destiny on those who have virtue→respecting virtue for the purpose of protecting people→appealing to the heaven for the eternal nation” these three nodes were rightly strung into a firm rope so that “respecting virtue” became the necessary condition of the eternal nation that discovered the wholly new, moral, ethical and humanistic aspects. 　　The key point of the humanistic turn of the early Chou religion was Chou-Kong and others, based on people's emotions rooted in the worshiping, divining activities for the transcendent, ingeniously turned people's inherited religious sentiments to the “virtue” itself. Under the function of Chou-Kong's self-consciousness, the religious sentiment of relations between gods and men smoothly transformed into the moral sentiment that made the religious spirit in the early Chou pushed a giant leap and opened a fully new religious spirit that directed to its moral and ethical dimensions. The religion-ration and humanity-ration were thus combined and melted; from this on, the humanistic meanings and values were acknowledged and regarded with esteem. On the grounded of that, the writer tries to make a systematic explication for its reason of unity by describing separately the historical process of the humanization of the early Chou religion from the aspects of formations, correlations and functions of both the view of “heaven's destiny” and the value-ration of “respecting virtue” among which the inter-dialectical relations used as an approach in this text.