 While heaven is presented as a willful and anthropomorphic being in the early parts of the Shangshu 尚書, it was not transcendent in the sense of being external to the system of nature. The term tian simultaneously refers to the sky, the orderly movement of the heavens, and something that covers all things equally. The classical Chinese word for the “world” or “realm” is literally what is “under-heaven”, tianxia 天下. Since the actions of heaven occur through the world, the two are often difficult to distinguish. The primary expression of heaven’s will is through human actions—to lose heaven’s mandate is to lose their support. The eventual transition in conceptions of heaven from a willful deity to the causal patterns of nature was possible because heaven was never separate from those patterns. Debates were about the nature of heaven rather than its existence, and heaven remained a central term for philosophers holding widely different viewpoints.