Christian revelation involves two realms of truth: the historical and the religious. The problem of the relationship between faith and history arises from the incommensurability of these two realms. While God revealed Himself in history this cannot be directly known nor proved by historical evidence. How can then an historical event be the basis of a religious truth that belongs to the realm of eternity? This paper examines Kierkegaard's answer to this fundamental problem of Christian thought. According to Kierkegaard the appearance of God in time is not a simple historical fact. Since it contains two qualitative opposites, the eternal and the historical, Kierkegaard classifies it as an absolute fact. Historical investigation can provide evidence for the fact that there was a man called Jesus who was born, lived and died. This evidence, however, cannot provide the basis for the conclusion that Jesus is God. Only through faith can the individual be aware of the divine hidden in the temporal and overcome the intrinsic objective uncertainty of this historical event. Faith, however, does not make the historical event objectively certain, for this is a matter of cognition. What it does is provide the individual with the subjective certainty that removes doubt and allows him to come to a decision with regard to this particular historical event. In the act of belief the individual always runs the risk of being wrong in his judgments, but nevertheless he wills to believe. For Kierkegaard faith lies precisely in this risk: of claiming subjective certainty with regard to an historical event that by its very nature is objectively uncertain.

View full abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to trace Iranian and Indian Zoroastrian folk religion(s) and by doing so, inquire into the concept of "sacred places" in Zoroastrianism, both in Iran and India. Despite priests' claim that Zoroastrianism is the "fire worshipping religion," I discovered in my field work in Iran that popular beliefs of Zoroastrians possess a long history of Holy-Water/Tree/Stone worship, at least in Iran. In India, however, Zoroastrian priests took the opportunity to reject such popular beliefs, and made an ideal religious community apart from Iranian folk religion.

View full abstract

The Visuddhimagga was written by Buddhaghosa in the fifth century. Previous studies have already clarified that Buddhaghosa imitated the Vimuttimagga (『解脱道論』: jie tuo dao lun) to write the Visuddhimagga. By analyzing his editorial method, however, we can see that Buddhaghosa not only copied the Vimuttimagga, but also introduced the concept of "three kinds of full-understanding," and, on the basis of this structure, selected or changed the contents of the Vimuttimagga in order to compile the treatise on "the development of wisdom" in the Visuddhimagga. Therefore, while the observation of "the four noble truths" plays a most important role in the practice for wisdom in the Vimuttimagga, the observation of "impermanence, suffering, and no self" or "emptiness" is most important in the Visuddhimagga. As a result, the new way of practice for wisdom composed by Buddhaghosa came to be the orthodox practice and the basic way of thinking in the Theravada Buddhism that prevailed in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.

View full abstract

In 1893, The World's Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's discovery of the New World. With this Fair, a World's Parliament of Religions was also held for the first time for displaying spiritual evolution, which received much attention and had a great influence. During the Parliament, Japanese Buddhism was introduced to American audiences by delegates of Japanese Buddhists. One of Buddhist delegates, Hirai Kinza, criticized Christian missionaries for contributing to the imperialistic invasion of Oriental nations. At that time, the Japanese government tried to revise the unequal treaties imposed by Western powers. Hirai's criticism of Christianity was motivated by nationalism aiming to build an equal relationship between Japan and Western nations. On the other hand, the Japan Pavilion at the Fair displayed Japanese arts and architecture. Ernest Fenollosa was entrusted by the Japanese government with the publicity for Japanese art. He was fascinated by Japanese arts and converted to Buddhism in order to understand the spirit of the Orient, and expressed his hopes of harmony between West and East. Hirai and Fenollosa established a friendship and proclaimed that Christianity and Buddhism would be synthesized. Their discourse, however, was inescapably involved in the "Orientalism" of the Columbian Exposition.

View full abstract

In the Taisho period (1912-1926) there appeared a semi-academic journal titled Hentai-shinri (Abnormal Psychology), which was published by the Japanese Association for Mental Medicine (Nihon Seishin Igaku Kai). This journal not only aimed at the establishment of scientific psychotherapy, but also began reproaching contemporary religious and spiritual groups as "superstitions." It especially and fiercely attacked Omotokyo, one of the most rapidly growing new religions and its method of spirit possession called Chinkon-kishin. Seishin-igaku, however, which was advocated by Hentai-shinri, was not what Seishin-igaku means today. This word was strategically used as an antithesis to the materialism of orthodox medicine. Though the Seishin-igaku of Hentai-shinri has been regarded as a rationalistic movement, it shared common ground with Chinkon-kishin. This common ground was centered around the word Seishin. In this paper, the historical background and meaning of the conflict between Hentai-shinri and Omotokyo over Seishin will be discussed, for which hypnotism, unconsciousness, spritualism, psychology, and psychiatry will be key terms.

View full abstract