Professor Tung maintains that when Confucius spoke of "respecting ghosts and spirits but holding them at a distance," it was not that he didn't believe in their existence, rather that he was opposed to superstitious practices that had come down from the Shang period.
倫理色彩與功利思想交雜董芳苑教授認為，孔子並非不相信神靈存在，只是他對宗教的態度一反殷商以來的迷信作為而已，所以「敬鬼神而遠之」。