Japan

Today we can enjoy many freedoms in our daily-lives as well as fundamental human rights in our society, at least in developed countries, protected by the constitutional laws. These freedoms and rights are considered essential to developing human capabilities and attaining happiness in our social lives as human beings, regardless of differences among races, ideological beliefs, or religious faiths.

In Japan a formal democratic society developed after the World War II. To keep a truly democratic society is, however, not an automatic process, but requires the continuous and energetic exercise of the people’s mental powers. Although today’s economically flourishing Japan looks like a democratic country, “statism” is still immensely strong as Karel van Wolferen has shown ; (there is not a dictatorship, but a tough bureaucratic system). Constructing a civil society, by which I mean a society where the freedom and dignity of an individual human person are protected above all things, is an urgent issue in today’s Japan. It also seems to be a global issue in the modern world, though taking into account each local culture and tradition.

A model of civil society emerged from the history of Western Europe, having started in the age of Reformation. The dignity of an individual was demonstrated by Martin Luther’s manifest in the Diet of Worms in 1521, “I will stand here alone, may God help me!” The idea of freedom and right of an individual was reinforced by the Enlightenment and the Civil Revolutions; the Independence War in Netherlands, the Glorious Revolution in England, the Independence of USA and the French Revolution.

In a civil society, there are many private multiform voluntary associations that have their own rights, freedoms, and responsibilities, different from those belonging to the institutions of the state. The private voluntary associations stand between an individual and the state or regional political communities. Thus, these multiform voluntary associations protect people from statism. The civil society should contain an inner ethos to promote a moral attitude revitalizing those rights, freedoms and responsibilities of multiform communities.

It is well known that Calvinism had a fruitful impact on the emergence of the Western civil society. The right of resistance grew up and released political freedom that resisted the absolute power of monarchs. Here the concept of “authority” was important. The authority of the transcendent to whom the people had a commitment was higher than the authority of the absolute monarch. This idea led to an institutional separation of Church and State. Furthermore, the reformation of religion was necessary to form a new person who could reform the society based on freedom of conscience against hierarchal obstacles.

Several kinds of religions surely could give rise to persons who commit themselves to a higher authority and thus participate in forming a civil society in spite of many obstacles, with love and friendship to their neighbors.

The purpose of the present paper is to show the existence of such a model of personhood from the history of religion in Japan. It will also give some suggestions towards forming global civil societies with different cultural backgrounds in the 21^st century, where diverse religious faiths are vividly seen, by cooperation with other religious believers. A truly religious believer can have an inner authority that is higher than the particular state or culture. Thus he or she can have a standard with which he (she) judges the particular state or culture, where the excesses of state power will be refrained. Within this limited purpose of forming a society where freedom of religion and human dignity are protected, Christian minority in Japan must cooperate with other religious believers.

One comment must be given here. Although in this paper I will show an important role of religion in forming a civil society, I mention nothing about Shinto. Shinto had the status of a state religion before the World War II. It became just one of religions after the War. Since Shinto has Emperor worship at its core even today, it is difficult for this religion to judge the Japanese state when today’s Japanese constitution declares that the Emperor is the “symbol” of Japan. Notwithstanding that the meaning of “symbol” is of course only a legal one, the Japanese state is always inclined to erode Shinto into the Japanese culture per se. So, my task in the past was to make clear that Shinto is different from the Japanese culture. Shinto is surely one of religions, and cannot be reduced to Japanese custom. But people do not still recognize this fact. So it must be shown next that religion in Japan actually includes Shinto along with Buddhism, Christianity etc., in a pluralistic way. (See my papers in Studies in Interreligious Dialogue and Philosophical Theology and East-West Dialogue, Rodopi, 2000). Thus, in this time, I will show in the present paper that true religion has an authority, transcending the authority of the state, by giving illustrations from Japanese history.

But, with respect to a state, so-called civil religion does not transcend the authority of the state, merely being used as a tool for unifying the nation state. This is clear from the fact that Japanese ideologues sometimes identify Shinto as the Japanese civil religion. So religions here must be positive religions, having historically formed doctrine of the transcendent. The Christian minority in Japan must first establish the existence of Japanese Christianity as a positive religion. This will be done effectively by comparing it with the Japanese main religion, namely, Buddhism.

The Christian higher education in Asia must include the comparative religious studies in its curriculum. This is very important to make identities of young Christian personality in non-Christian societies. Since understanding ourselves is related to understanding others in a hermeneutical way, study of other religions is just an illustration of study of meaning of common grace. Through this cross cultural and cross religious studies, young Christian can make sure the reason why they are Christians in this historical reality now. Thus the Christian identity is strengthened and calling is made clearer from this challenging approach.

The 13^th century saw a Reformation of Buddhism in Japan. Before this era, Buddhism (Mahayana-Buddhism) in Japan functioned only as a magical and liturgical protection of the noble class or ruling power, and had the status of the state religion. The Samurai class rose up in the 11^th century and established a ruling government in Kamakura, in the eastern part of Japan, in the end of 12^th century. The Samurai people were originally soldiers, protecting the noble class, who were always prepared to die for their lords. They lived by the side of death and, therefore, thought sincerely about the meaning of life and death in their daily lives. They needed salvation in a personal sense. The Reformation of Buddhism was thus welcomed both by this Samurai class and ordinary people like farmers or merchants.

These new elements in Reformation developed side by side with the decline of the old establishment ruled by noble clans for nearly five hundred years.

Among Reformers Shinran(1173‐1262), Dogen(1200‐53) and Nichiren(1222‐82) were important.　Shinran excelled in an inner purity and a religious emotion through tough commitment to Amida-Buddha (personal tathagata). Dogen pursued a penetrating philosophical logic along with physical training through practical faith. Nichiren was distinguished by his prophetic will and his action through the Scriptural faith, as a practicer of the Lotus Sutra.

By responding to the absolute grace of salvation, Shinran’s thorough obedience to Amida without dependence on legal commandments, has been compared with sola fide by Martin Luther. Contemporaneous with St. Francis, a great teaching of salvation by sola fide appeared in Japan! (Karl Barth).

Shinran’s interpretation of Buddhism and his activity will be summarized in the following three points.

Dogen was a Zen-master, who studied for a long time in China. His teaching of Zen-Buddhism is, in a sense, quite opposite to Amida-faith, because Buddha’s truth, Dharma, manifests itself in impersonal reality. After sitting on a floor for a long time and by negating his ego, a man must realize that emptiness is the nature of true reality. True self is thus achieved as nothingness. When he is enlightened by this Nirvana, he is liberated from all sufferings and can live every-day calm and peace. The teaching of Zen is well illustrated in the “Ten Bulls.” (See H.Inagaki & N.Jennings, Philosophical Theology and East-West Dialogue, pp.38-46)

Nichiren at first belonged to the ‘Nenbutsu’-sect but afterwards criticized and rejected it. He claimed not only the supremacy of the Lotus Sutra (Saddharma-pundarikausutra) among the many sacred books, but also the way of bodhisattva, that is to say, the practice of Buddha’s mercy towards human fellows. The motto of Nichren was “committing to Buddha’s truth, not to man’s truth”, which meant that human acts should follow the Lotus Sutra instead of being influenced by human dependent relationships. Nichiren was distinctive in his political thinking when compared to other Reformers. Since Buddha’s law and the King’s law were balanced in him, he sometimes criticized the Kamakura governor. Owing to that act, he suffered persecution. His idea was that while the governor (state) ruled by good law would flourish, that ruled by evil law would come to ruin.

The following analogy seems to be interesting. While Shinran may be compared with Luther, Nichren may be compared with Calvin, and perhaps Dogen with Menno Simons. But the story of Shinran’s followers was also somewhat similar to the Calvinists.

After Shinran, in the time of Rennyo (1415‐99), the Jyodo-shinshu sect (Pure Land sect) often participated in the resistance movements with armaments against the political power. The biggest resistance was in Kaga, where the believers governed by themselves in a democratic way for more than 100 years. Its zenith, and simultaneously its last resistance, was in Ishiyama in 1570. The monks and believers fought for 11 years at the Castle of Ishiyama against Nobunaga Oda, who finally ended the War-Age in Japan (c.1576) and united the country.

It is interesting to notice that Christianity was first brought Japan during this time by a Jesuit monk, Francis Xavier (1549). Further, in Europe, the Huguenot War (1562‐98) and the Independence of the Netherlands Republic (1581) took place in this era. The balance of God’s law and King’s law, or the problem of separation of Church and State, was also a big issue there.

The reason why I use the term Reformation in order to describe the Buddhist Renaissance is its Religio-social results, with its later aftereffects in Japanese history. First, in Europe, the Reformation began with the problem of a personal salvation and spread among the people at the same time as a social reformation. A similar situation occurred in Japan. Second, although Buddhism was accepted mainly by the ruling class and scholars in Japan, ordinary people were alienated from salvation. But Kamakura Reformers brought the salvation message in a simple way to the ordinary people, even if they lived and worked in this-world; they did not need to throw away jobs to become monks in the temples. To be sure, the monks in the temples sometimes fought against secular governors before the Kamakura era, but these battles were fought merely to defend or acquire secular privileges for themselves. After the Kamakura era, people in general fought in order to protect their own faiths. The fight for protecting their own faiths is seen as a requirement of freedom of conscience, or at least as a bud seeking for modern human right. These situations are parallel to what the teaching of ‘inner-world asceticism’ claimed in the history of European Reformation.

Unfortunately the results of Reformation in Japan did not mature and thus fully generate a civil society. After Nobunaga, any tendency toward religious freedom was cut down by the political power. In 1637, more than thirty thousand Christians at Nagasaki engaged in an armed riot against the Tokugawa Shogunate, with the result that they were all killed. (The Dutch ships then assisted the Tokugawa army!) After this riot, neither Buddhism nor Christianity could resist the political power any more. The hope of producing freedom in society evaporated. This was completed with the Sakoku policy (closing Japan’s doors to other countries) by the Tokugawa Shogunate (1639‐1868). For more than 200 years the society appeared peaceful and quiet, but actually any true creative development was not there.

The religio-political situation after Kamakura era will be schematically categorized as follows.

Here Eisai was a Zen-master. It should be noted that all the sects always reached I as their final stage. This means that the Buddhist sects were forced to become so-called the state religion for the purpose extinguishing Christianity by the Tokugawa Shogunate until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. (I will add one thing here. From 1868 to 1945, the state religion was Shinto. The state power has thus always controlled religions in Japan.)

One sect of Nichren’s followers was called Fujyu-Fuse-ha. Apart from Christians, this sect was the only religious group that was persecuted seriously by the Tokugawa government. The Fujyu-Fuse-ha’s case is helpful to the study of the meaning of a civil society in non-Christian world, because the problem of authority was questioned during its struggle, and the freedom of religion put forth a small sprout there. (H.Inagaki, “The Public-private in Japanese Religious Situation”, Public Philosophy, vol.3, Univ. of Tokyo Press)

In 1599 Nichio (1565‐1630) opposed the Shogun, Ieyasu Tokugawa, who held absolute power at that time. Ieyasu ordered Nichio to come to the dedication of a new Buddha statue at Kyoto. But Nichio declined to attend the ceremony because Fujyu-Fuse-ha’s confession did not allow this kind of ceremonial participation in other sects. The dictator Ieyasu was angry at Nichio’s rejection of his order and punished Nichio, banishing him to a small island. In spite of the government’s severe oppression, Nichio’s followers increased year by year. Finally the Shogunate government arrested the believers on a large scale in 1691 and imprisoned or killed them.

Almost at the same time in England, successful Glorious Revolution occured. John Locke came home from the Netherlands and published his Letters concerning Tolerance (1689) and Two Treatises of Government (1690). Locke wrote that the state should implement a policy of religious tolerance for the nation, in consideration of the oppressed Puritans.

The dispute between Nichio and Ieyasu was similar to that between Locke and the advocates of the Divine Right of Kings. One major issue was “Who is the possessor of the national land?” ( legitimacy of reign) While Ieyasu answered “The Lord of the nation is”, Nichio answered “Buddha is.”

Nichio said, ”It is Buddha’s grace that we can have heat from heaven and keep our lives nourished by the crops from ground.” Hearing that “all the world belongs to Buddha, and Japan is a part of Buddha’s world” also reminds us of the following Biblical passage, “God made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein: who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”(Acts14: 15-17) This grace is called common grace in Christian theology, different from special grace of salvation by faith.

Locke further developed the legitimacy of reign as a political idea instead of a theological idea, which he concretely elaborated in opposition to the Divine Right of Kings in his Two Treatises.

The world created by God was entrusted to Adam, the father of all races. Was the authorized right of Adam as a steward of lands, in particular the land of England, inherited by the King of England or by the English people? While the advocate of Divine Right supported the former position, Locke denied it. Locke argued that each person entrusted his natural right to his own possession to a governor through assent and reliance on a social contract. However, on that occasion, freedom of conscience or inner freedom was not entrusted.

Ieyasu ordered the Buddhist monks to come to the celebration of the new Buddha statue. But a monk could clearly deny this order due to his freedom of conscience. The Lockean doctrine would support this, from which a modern civil society could start. Nichio’s idea and behavior was a global issue at that time; the authority of the transcendent is above that of a governor or a Lord of the state.

Let us consider the foundation of a civil society from a religious perspective. Nichio committed himself to Buddhism. Usually Buddhism is considered to be a religion that is immanent instead of transcendent. But if you see Nichio’s behavior, you cannot deny that it is surely a result of a transcendent thought. From a religio-social aspect Buddhism here functions as transcendent, because the authority of Buddha is higher than that of a governor. This is why Nichio could resist the authority of the dictatorial governor. Instead of authority, perhaps, sovereignty will be a preferable term for developing a public philosophy underlying a civil society.

Sovereignty was originally a theological idea introduced by Jean Calvin (1509－64). Only the Creator God has sovereignty, and no creature can have it. But in the history of Western Europe, in the process of emergence of Modern society from the Middle Ages, Jean Bodin used the idea of sovereignty to found the Absolute state (1576), where a monarch could have sovereignty. Huguenot, Dutch Calvinists, and Puritans were strongly against this monarchical theory, because a King was no more than a creature.

They thought that a King or a state Governor could not have sovereignty. This led to the idea of Monarchomachi , i.e., the idea that a bad ruler with an unjust absolute power should be banished. The concept of sovereignty was inclined to mean the political power from top to down. Instead of this type of top-down thinking, Johannes Althusius stressed human symbiosis in bottom-up thinking in Politica (1610). Herman Dooyeweerd cited a passage from the Althusius’ Politica in the following way,

Every type of social relationships has its proper laws peculiar to it, whereby it is ruled. And these laws are different and divergent in each kind of social relationship, according to the requirement of the inner nature of each of them. (New Critique of Theoretical Thought.III:653)

Dooyeweerd sees that the inner natures of various types of symbiotic social relationships give the principle of internal sphere sovereignty (sovereignty in its own sphere). Private voluntary associations are illustrations of these symbiotic social relations. A voluntary association is made from each people’s bottom-up vital need without compulsion by the state, and therefore has internal sphere sovereignty. The vital need may be sometimes biological and sometimes ethical; both needs are interpreted to be proper laws that are peculiar to human being. These proper laws can either be called immanent because of their bottom-up nature, or transcendent when seen as the creational orders.

Due to the fact that these proper laws are not reducible to other laws, we can say each voluntary association has sphere sovereignty. Thus sovereignty does not only belong to the state, but also to various private voluntary associations, sometimes crossing over national boundaries. Between the private individual and the state, there are a number of intermediate voluntary associations with their own sphere sovereignties such as NGO’s and other public sectors. This intermediate sphere is a public sphere, so to speak, constructed by citizens. The role of state is to protect these sphere sovereignties by making laws and sometimes to make conditions of subsidiary for symbiosis.

The civil society thus considered is essentially religious. First, each people’s bottom-up vital need emerges from the fact that they listen to their inner voice or inner authority regardless of other outer human authorities. Second, the proper laws are not human devices, but are given, either as immanent or as transcendent, by the cosmic Buddha’s laws or by God’s creational laws, respectively. For the naturalists, they are given by Nature! Third, the purposes of the voluntary associations are the fulfillment of public happiness, which is the manifestation of love to neighbors or the mercy of brotherhood. This kind of ethos is fostered by each type of society according to its tradition.

Who can form a civil society? Who is obligated to participate in a healthy civil society? The answer is that anyone who can understand the meaning of freedom and who has the capacity to share it with others in solidarity must participate in a healthy civil society. We need this moral person to keep a civil society.

In the Reformation tradition the concept of freedom may be found in the following thesis by Luther. “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” The former part declares the meaning of inner freedom or the dignity of person. Without the former part, a Christian will become just a slavishly dependent fellow, though being full of piety. Actually, in the Lutheran tradition in Germany, this bad Pietat (piety) appeared under the Nazi regime, among the so-called “German Christians”, who thought that the particular folk-idea is more important than the universal Christian idea.

Thus the Reformation has not always liberated freedom, but sometimes have provided an unfortunate illustration of bad Pietat. For a healthy civil society, how can we take the Reformation tradition into consideration? How can we find “the person who can understand the meaning of freedom, having the capacity to share it with others in solidarity”?

Such a bad Pietat, just as in Lutheran tradition, was also experienced by the followers of the Japanese Reformation. The very similar attitude to “the German Christian” appeared in “the Japanese Buddhist”, who thought that the particular folk-idea to be more important than the universal Buddhist idea, during the World War II. The point is easier to see in the case of Zen-Buddhism. In a word, it came from the idea of non-ego or nothingness. The idea of non-ego was misused as the tool of “Messhi-Hoko” (that is, Exterminate ego, Subject yourself to the Lord!). The idea of non-ego was interpreted as the uncritical following of the state, sacrifice for the Emperor, and blind subjection to state power.

Kitaro Nishida’s “Logic of Topos (Place)” could also be given such a dangerous interpretation. Actually, he himself argued that the Japanese Royal House, although stemming from a mere historical contingency, should be equated with the universal “place of absolute nothingness.”（See Philosophical Theology and East-West Dialogue, pp62-66）

Let’s see the reason why this kind of misunderstanding happened by studying Nishida’s theory of personal identity based on awareness.

It is possible to link Nishida’s theory of awareness to the consciousness-structure of human identity. This is because he is clearly discussing “ absolute otherness as the self’s foundation.”（See Philosophical Theology and East-West Dialogue, pp50-53）

In such documents as his Nishida’s 1932 essay “I and Thou” Nishida developed his view of “absolute otherness” so as to produce the following types of self-understanding: “When it is thought that the self sees the self in the self, together with it being thought that the self sees the absolute other in the self, it must mean that that absolute other is precisely the self.” “At the basis of our world and the things which can be thought, there is a foundation laid through a kind of personal awareness, namely that we thus see the absolute other at the bottom of the self, and vice versa see the self in the absolute other.”

The expression “the self sees the self in the self” can be understood simply as a tautology. However, this expression means the structure of awareness in Nishida Philosophy. It is not simply a tautology. For Nishida‐who rejects as objectifying logic (Aristotelian logic) the kind of logic which views the self objectively‐it is the origin of ‘topos-like’ logic that seeks to grasp the self from within the self. Here when saying “ X sees Z in Y,” even though X, Y and Z are the same word ‘self’, X = ‘I’, Y = ‘the topos of absolute nothingness’, and Z= ‘the true self’. In other words, “I see the true self in the topos of absolute nothingness.” However, in the essay “I and Thou,” Y is not ‘the topos of absolute nothingness,’ but has been changed to ‘ absolute other’. The statement is therefore “I see the true self in the absolute other.” This is a scheme of human self-understanding in contact with the religious root.

“I see the true self in the absolute other” is the expression of a highly condensed self-understanding. However, it is not necessarily only the religious person or speculative religious philosopher who achieves this kind of awareness. In fact, anyone has this kind of structure of identity intrinsically in his self-understanding. Even if one is not particularly aware of it, a normal person has within his personality a certain coherence that ought to be operative in everyday life.

Bin Kimura, a psychiatrist, conducts the meaningful tests of linking in order to study mental illness, fundamental impediments and this kind of structure of philosophical self-understanding. According to Kimura, the symptoms of schizophrenia can be explained as the condition of the above-described fundamental, formal X-Y-Z entirety having lost first-person, individual coherence in the personality’s self-other identity. Such a condition hinders the so-called establishment of the self.

For example, taking the above Y = ‘absolute other’ in the case of a normal person, the ‘absolute other’ is within the self. There is the otherness of viewing the self within the self objectively; there is the capacity for self-criticism. But in the case of the ill person within whose self the ‘absolute other’ is not established, in the actual world he turns into a truly other person. The condition called ‘mental inference’, whereby one thinks that all of his own consciousness is thought by someone else, is thus manifested.

Kimura notes, “Generally schizophrenia is said to be an excess of self-consciousness or reflection. In particular, the ‘introspective’ type of patients continually and compellingly are gazing at the self itself, and that obstructs their maintaining harmonious interpersonal relationships.”

Even if it does not go as far as schizophrenia, it is said that an overwhelmingly large number of Japanese exhibit the mental, pathological symptoms of fearfully noticing the ‘eye of the other’. Also, this is deeply related to the psychological structure that produces a ‘culture of shame’. One can understand how important it is for Japanese to nurture in their hearts the true meaning of the ‘absolute other’. In the case of a philosopher with tenacious speculative abilities like Nishida, perhaps through the help of advanced Buddhist philosophy there was a clarification both of the existence of the ‘absolute other’ within the self as well of his own self-understanding. But what about Japanese people in general? Are not most fully steeped in a ‘culture of shame’ and the ‘anatomy of dependence’, unaware of any means of changing from that state?

Moreover, there also appear to be problems in the logical structure of both Nishida Philosophy and its foundation, Mahayana Buddhism. That is, one can say that the tautological self-understanding itself, the “self sees the self within the self,” impedes the establishment of the self of Japanese people in the true sense. Is it not the case that Mahayana Buddhism does not have a sufficiently transcendent principle? One must say that within the mental state of Japanese people, who over a long period have been nurtured by Mahayana Buddhism, the establishment of the self has after all remained in the state of the non-existence of the ‘absolute other’. There is a loss within themselves of the true, personal partner whom one addresses. It thus follows that self-denial easily becomes absolute self-affirmation. .

B. Topos and Jesus Christ

Within this kind of mental climate, then, what can an awareness of a theistic religious ground motive offer to Japanese people and Japanese culture?

When saying “I see the true self in the absolute other,” in the case of Zen awareness the absolute other is the “topos of absolute nothingness.” With the religion of Buddhism it must be that way. However, that should not be the case with Christianity as a religion of ‘being’ as opposed to a religion of ‘nothingness’. The beginning verse of John’s Gospel is: “In the beginning was the Word.” Also, the beginning verse of Genesis reads: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Even if one squarely receives the challenge of Buddhism’s ‘nothingness’, one must not forget that there is in Christianity a strongly affirming act of the “creation of the world by a personal God.”

Driven by the religious ground motive of creation, fall and redemption, Christianity should not have the ‘topos of absolute nothingness’ as the absolute other but instead the ‘topos of absolute being’. In this case, topos is not of course a physical place, but a topos of meaning. The ‘topos of absolute being’ is therefore Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of meaning. The agent of change should be Jesus Christ. The scheme of self-understanding in the Christian is this: “I see the true self in Jesus Christ.” Furthermore, that is the scheme of self-understanding resulting from the redemption from sin in Christ. It is the awareness that the purpose and meaning of my being created as me is restored, that I will fulfill my responsibilities to others and to society. It is not a thesis obtained as the result of speculation, but something obtained through the revelation of the Bible and by the grace of Christ.

One can say that Paul's frequent expression en Xristo (in Christ), that is being in Christ as the topos of meaning, is the Christian’s daily experiential self-understanding. The expression “clothed with Christ” (Galatians 3:27) is also close. Phrases about the indwelling Christ, e.g., “that Christ may dwell in your hearts” (Ephesians 3:17), “Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19), “Christ is in you” (Romans 8:10), “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20), also are expressions connected to the Christian's self-understanding and self-identity.

After all, then, Christ is the ‘absolute other’ and I am I. It is not the case that I am “united with Christ” in a mystical experience nor is there a reduction to a principle of existence wherein “Christ is the believer's ultimate experience” (the true self). I will be made “like Jesus Christ” (I John 3:2); I must approach the ‘true self’. In this way one can actually say that “the knowledge of God and self-knowledge are mutually related.”

In “I see the true self in the absolute other,” if you take the historical Royal House as the absolute other, it would lead to the “Japanese Buddhist”, the bad Pietat model that Nishida actually took. Interpreting the absolute other through an impersonal concept is a weak point in Zen. In Buddhism, however, it is not necessary to interpret it in the impersonal sense. For example, Amida-Buddha is clearly personal as we have already seen. This is why, perhaps, Jyodo-shinshu sect proved to have a greater resistance historically to political power. The love of Christ or the mercy of Amida is considered to be personal and infinite. This infinite and personal love or mercy enables people to serve others. But if the absolute other is finite, as Kimura shows, one’s personal identity will be unstable. One may identify this absolute other with a “respectable” person, a political leader, or a religious guru. Thus the danger that people would support a totalitarian state or a religious cult will be always possible even in a modern democratic society.

6．Conclusion

Here we have answered the question “How can we find the person who can understand the meaning of freedom, having the capacity to share it with others in solidarity?”. From a Christian perspective, we can say that we have a personal Redeemer behind the following Luther’s two theses: “A Christian is a king who stands over all people and not subject to anyone. A Christian is a servant who serves to all people and subject to everybody.”

The state must protect freedom, especially freedom of religion, and the rights of the citizen in each proper spheres of their lives by making appropriate laws. This sphere sovereignty should be recognized in a truly civil society, especially by the government. The citizens, in particular Christian citizens in Asia, should form various types of voluntary associations from the bottom-up in order to keep a healthy civil society. Between the individual and the government, there should be a number of private voluntary associations that are formed by religious groups. These various religious groups should have their own image of public happiness for co-existing with each other in their earthly lives, regardless of their faiths. This could be done, in my opinion, not only by the teaching of Jesus “love your neighbors”, but also by His “love your enemy.” This way of thinking and living is possible only for mature Christian citizens. One of the purposes of the education in Christian schools is fostering these good citizens.

Religious Education for a Civil Society ~ Meaning of Religions in the Secularized Japanese Society ~

Religious Education for a Civil Society

~ Meaning of Religions in the Secularized Japanese Society ~