A Study on the Relationship between the Eschatology and Social Practices in “Demonstration of Christianity” by Tanabe Hajime

Abstract

This paper aims to elucidate the content and position of the eschatology which he emphasized, and to clarify the features of Tanabe Hajime’s understanding of Christianity, based on his work “Demonstration of Christianity”. The following three points are the characteristics of Christianity considered by Tanabe; (1) Christianity is a religion that carries out social practice in its essence, (2) Christianity can and should avoid the identity which originates from the personal god, who is a existence, by relying on the “absolute nothingness” introduced from Buddhism. (3) Christianity is a religion that has historical concreteness in its structure. In particular, the unique interpretation of the eschatology by Tanabe is considered to be the key concept of his religious philosophy that leads to the social practice he aimed at. According to Tanabe, the eschatology is seen as mediation for the transformation between ethics and religion based on history. In other words, the eschatology is a dialectic that absolutely denies this world, and the structure of eschatology directs humans to change the value of the moral custom and to create new societies. In addition, Tanabe argues that Christianity is mediated by the reason of Marxism based on the dialectics that serve as negative mediation between religion and reason. In this way, Christianity is given concreteness about what to do as a social practice in a particular era on history.