Nishida on God, Barth and Christianity1
2009; Routledge; Volume: 19; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/09552360902943761
ISSN1469-2961
Autores Tópico(s)Christian Theology and Mission
ResumoAbstract Despite the central role that the concept of God played in Kitarō Nishida's philosophy—and more broadly, within the Kyoto School which formed around Nishida—Anglophone studies of the religious philosophy of modern Japan have not seriously considered the nature and role of God in Nishida's thought. Indeed, relevant Anglophone studies even strongly suggest that where the concept of God does appear in Nishida's writings, such a concept is to be dismissed as a ‘subjective fiction’, a ‘penultimate designation’, or a peripheral Western intrusion with no genuine relationship to the core of Nishida's thought. However, a careful study of Nishida's own writings reveals that for Nishida, in his own words, God is ‘that which is indispensable and decisive’. For the first time in English, this present study reveals Nishida's view of God, especially examining Nishida's debt to the theologian Karl Barth and Christianity. Notes Notes [1] Because the precision of Japanese philosophical vocabulary does not translate into English, I have added superscripts to clarify the original Japanese term where appropriate, as follows: [EXPERIENCE] experience (generic) [] ; experiencet (intensified with possible bodily manifestation) []. [HISTORY] historyg (as in the mythical history of faith) (Geschichte); historyh (as in the factual history discernible by science) (Historie). [IDEALISM] idealismr (versus realism) []; idealismb (versus materialism/realism) []; idealismm (versus materialism) []; idealismp or optimism (versus pessimism) []. [MATTER] materialismm []; matterh (as opposed to form) []. [OBJECT] objecte (epistemological) []; objectx (existential) []; object (determinate, standing against) []. [REAL] real (generic) []; realj (especially, philosophically, as a substance) []. [SPIRIT] spiritg (as in German Geist) []; spiritr (as animating force) []. [SUBJECT] subjecte (epistemological) []; subjectx (existential, active) []; subjectg (grammatical-logical) []; subject matter []. [2] Parkes (Citation1987, p. 6). Parkes also states on the same page that ‘The employment of the vocabulary of contemporary analytic philosophy does not generally fare much better’. However, studies such as that of Sueki (Citation1988) demonstrate that Nishida's philosophy can be considered from such a perspective. Indeed, Sueki makes extensive use of symbolic logic in this work to draw out the subtleties of Nishida's system. [3] Kosaka (Citation2000, p. 25): ‘There is a good reason that Christian thinkers such as Kazō Kitamori, Katsumi Takizawa, Kakichi Kadowaki, and Seiichi Yagi, are good interpreters of Nishida. Nishida learned earnestly what he could learn from Christianity, and frankly recognizing its strong points. Although Buddhists such as Rinzai, Dōgen, Shinran, and Daitōkokushi were important catalysts in the formation of Nishida's thought, Christians such as Augustine, Eckhart, Pascal, Kierkegaard were no less important.’ [4] This statement by Takizawa appears at least three times in his work, found in TKC 1: 441, TKC 2: 521–522, and Takizawa (Citation1976), p. 87 (the last source being reprinted in Sakaguchi (Citation1989, p. 164)). Note that Nishida used both the Japanese expression (kami []) and the German expression (Gott) for God. [5] NKZ 11: 372. I do not refer to the pagination for Dilworth's (Citation1987) well known translation. I found his work to be better classified as a ‘paraphrase’ than a genuine ‘translation’. For example, here, Dilworth translates as ‘Religion is about God’ (p. 48). However, it is clear that the proper translation is ‘without God, there is no religion’, which attributes to God a much greater significance. [6] Nishida (Citation1990, p. 149); NKZ 1: 169. [7] Nishida (Citation1990, p. 151); NKZ 1: 171. [8] Nishida (Citation1990, p. 152); NKZ 1: 172–173. [9] NKZ 9: 183 (from Nishida's 1919 essay, ‘Absolute contradictory self-identity’), ‘In the basis of the emergence of society, the religious is acting’. [10] NKZ 9: 215, ‘Religion does not make culture its aim. Rather, the reverse is the case. However, true culture is necessarily born from religion.’ [11] NKZ 9: 217, ‘Religion does not ignore the standpoint of morality. Rather the standpoint of true morality is grounded by way of religion.’ Cf. also NKZ 11: 438 (from the 1945 work, Topological logic and the religious worldview), ‘ethical action is religious in its basis. Those who are imprisoned in Kantian philosophy cannot comprehend this’. [12] For example, NKZ 11: 438. Dilworth's (Citation1987, pp. 5–6) concludes: ‘Nishida's whole philosophical project had thus come to focus upon his concern to articulate that form of life which we commonly call religious’. [13] NKZ 1: 173. Nishida (Citation1990, p. 153); NKZ 15: 223, 224, 225 (Lecture on ‘Religion’, 1913–1914); NKZ 11: 409 (Topological logic and the religious worldview, 1945). Consider also NKZ 12: 30 (1937), ‘At the point at which facts can be conceived of as determining themselves, we are always making contact with some Entity (aru mono [])—that is to say, we are always connected with God’. [14] NKZ 15: 223–224. [15] Heisig (Citation2001, p. 16): ‘When it comes to the question of the existence of God, their suspensions of judgment can be particularly vexing. The fact is, [the primary Kyoto School philosophers] … speak regularly of God, [and …] there is no question of any of them confessing belief in a divine being or beings in the sense in which those terms are normally used …. But … no attempt is made to qualify the term as a symbol of ultimate reality or as a metaphysical principle; nothing is said of an objective ontological reality or a subjective fiction.’ [16] Carter (Citation1989, p. 106). [17] Carter (Citation1989, p. 107). [18] Heisig (Citation2001, p. 101). [19] Heisig (Citation2001, p. 101). [20] Heisig (Citation2001, p. 303). [21] NKZ 1: 175; Nishida (Citation1965, p. 217); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 155). [22] NKZ 1: 176; Nishida (Citation1965, p. 218); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 155). [23] NKZ 1: 176; Nishida (Citation1965, p. 218); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 156). [24] NKZ 1: 4; Nishida (Citation1990, p. xxx). [25] NKZ 1: 10; Nishida (Citation1990, p. 4). [26] NKZ 5: 182, from The self-realizational structure of the universal [] (1930). [27] NKZ 7: 218; cf. Nishida (Citation1970, p. 108), from Sequel to basic problems of philosophy (1934): ‘… post-Aristotelean logic, even to this day, has been unable to discard the standpoint of subjectiveg logic. Even traditional metaphysicians have been unable to discard the standpoint of mere objectivisme.’ [28] NKZ 11: 170, from [] (1944): ‘To seek the mediation of a transcendent “God” is to be imprisoned in the form of subjectiveg logic. It means to explain what is not understood in terms of what is even less understood.’ [29] NKZ 11: 407–408, from Topological logic and the religious worldview (1945): ‘The non-empirical sight (miru []) of Buddhism is not external objectivet sight, but is to enlighten the basis of the self, to reflect it. To externally empirically see (miru []) God is nothing other than the evil law (akuhō []).’ [30] NKZ 11: 416: ‘Various mistakes regarding the relationship between God and human beings emerge from the viewpoint of objectt logic. I do not expel objectt logic. Rather, objectt logic is necessarily entailed within concrete logic as an opportunity (keiki []) of its self-determination. … It is a mistake to conceive of the self itself in the manner of objectt logic, as a substance (jittai []), by way of the substantialization (jittaika []) of so-called ideas.’ [31] NKZ 11: 399. [32] NKZ 11: 406. [33] NKZ 13: 77. ‘My reaction to Mr. Annosuke Yamamoto's article, “Religion and reason”’ (1898) []; cf. Yusa (Citation2002, p. 56). [34] NKZ 1: 190; Nishida (Citation1965, p. 235); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 168). [35] NKZ 11: 398. [36] Heisig (Citation2001, p. 16). [37] Abe (Citation1999, p. 98). [38] Takizawa (Citation1987, p. 205). [39] Carter (Citation1989, p. 86). [40] NKZ 18: 125, letter #111 to Ryōkichi Yamamoto, as translated by Yusa (Citation2002, p. 86). [41] NKZ 1: 28; Nishida (Citation1990, pp. xiv, xv, 19, 160). [42] NKZ 1: 6. [43] Please note that Nishida commentators differ regarding the significance of ‘pure experience’ for Nishida's later philosophy. On the one hand, Kunitsugu Kōsaka has claimed that for the later Nishida, ‘pure experience’ was surpassed by more accurate and more all-encompassing standpoints. On the other hand, Masao Abe and Shizuteru Ueda have claimed that ‘pure experience’ forms the basis of all Nishida's philosophy from beginning to end. Given the Zen standpoint of Abe and Ueda, this conclusion is not surprising, because Zen accounts of enlightenment are also commonly explained in terms of experience. [44] Carter (Citation1989, p. 107). [45] NKZ 1: 178, Nishida (Citation1965, p. 221); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 158). [46] NKZ 1: 186, Nishida (Citation1965, p. 230); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 164). [47] NKZ 1: 186; Nishida (Citation1965, p. 230); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 164). [48] Carter (Citation1989, p. 86). [49] NKZ 1: 175–176; Nishida (Citation1965, pp. 216–217); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 155). NKZ 1: 194–195; Nishida (Citation1965, pp. 239–240); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 171). [50] NKZ 11: 170, from [] 1944. [51] NKZ 1: 175–176; Nishida (Citation1965, pp. 216–217); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 155). NKZ 1: 194–195; Nishida (Citation1965, pp. 239–240); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 171). [52] NKZ 11: 170, from [] 1944. [53] NKZ 11: 399, NKZ 11: 428. [54] NKZ 11:428. [55] Instead of the common translation, ‘inverse-correspondence’, I have opted to translate Nishida's term ‘gyakutaiō ’ [] as ‘inverse-response’. I have done this because, in contrast to the potentially static and impersonal term ‘correspondence’, the term ‘response’ suggests the dynamic and personal action that Nishida clearly had in mind. In explaining the nature of inverse-response (gyakutaiō), Nishida makes its dynamic and personal character very clear in passages such as the following: ‘there must in all cases be an opposition between God's will and the will of human beings’ (NKZ 11: 428); ‘The opposition between God and human beings is exhaustively one of inverse-response. That is to say, religious consciousness does not emerge from our selves, but is the call of God or the Buddha’ (NKZ 11: 409–410); ‘there must be submission to the decision of God by our own decision’ (NKZ 11: 438); etc. [56] NKZ 11: 415. [57] NKZ 11: 439. [58] NKZ 7: 442–443; Nishida (Citation1970, p. 247ff), from Sequel to the basic problems of philosophy, 1934. In 1945, Nishida added: ‘Inasmuch as the source of self-realization is God, this history-bound world is God's self-expression …. What about the Zen saying that the mind and Buddha are the same? Does this mean that human individuals are identical with God? If we were, there would be no need to speak about God. The God-reality is something we can never see or become one with, except we know it and listen to it. We are never separated from it and yet are never identical with it.’ (NKZ 11: 409, Topological logic and the religious worldview, 1945; cf. Yusa (Citation1998, p. 29).) [59] NKZ 11: 399. [60] Abe (Citation1999, p. 98). [61] Takizawa (Citation1987), ‘Irreversibility’, p. 205. [62] NKZ 1: 190; Nishida (Citation1965, p. 235); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 168). [63] NKZ 11: 398. [64] NKZ 1: 28; Nishida (Citation1990, pp. xiv, xv, 19, 160). [65] Consider NKZ 19: 46; 21 September 1938, letter #1281 to Takizawa, ‘The reason [that my standpoint can account for individual self-realization] is because the historical world is the creation of God and that human beings are the image of God, and not that human beings attain self-realization and attain personhood (jinkaku to naru []) by themselves (ningen de [])’. Note that Nishida uses the English word ‘image’ here, with no Japanese equivalent. [66] NKZ 11: 409–410. [67] Cf. NKZ 11: 407, {What is usually called repentance (zange []) amounts to nothing but regret for evil in one's self (jiko no aku []). Self-power still remains. True repentance entails shame (haji []).}; NKZ 11: 411 {Originally, it is not necessary for there to be self-power religion. Indeed, this is a paradoxical idea. Even Buddhists err on this point. As Mahāyāna Buddhism, Zen and True Pure Land Buddhism, and the respective stances of self-power and Other-power, share the same standpoint.}; NKZ 11: 412 {To claim that—by way of an ideal land (risōchi []) wherein it is thoroughly impossible to reach God or the Buddha objectivelyt—the self exerts effort in the manner of negation and—yet affirmation, is typical self-power and is not religion. Herein, Shinran Shōnin's crosswise leap is not to be found, and this is exceedingly non-Pure Land.}; NKZ 11: 437 {Creation must in all cases be from love. If there is no love, then there is no creation. The practitioners of the recitation of the name of the Buddha Amida (nembutsu []) adhere to non-practice and non-goodness (higyō hizen []) because they earnestly devote themselves to Other power and separate themselves from self-power. The spontaneity of things just as they are (jinen hōni []) must be creative}. [68] NKZ 11: 411. [69] Heidegger (Citation1973, p. 224); cf. the original Was heisst Denken?, p. 136. [70] Neske and Kettering (Citation1990, pp. 62–63). [71] NKZ 11: 417. Compare Nishida's own ‘spiritual fact’ (shinreijō no jijitsu []) (NKZ 11: 371). [72] NKZ 11: 399. [73] NKZ 19: 224–225, letter #1738, 19 February 1943, to Keiji Nishitani; the whole train of thought reads: ‘It is said that something Zen-like is in the background [of my thought], and that is absolutely correct. … I surmise that Zen is what truly makes grasping reality (genjitsu haaku []) its life. It is impossible, but I would like to try and combine Zen with philosophy. This has been my earnest desire (nengan []) since my thirties.’ [74] Dilworth's (Citation1987, p. 129). [75] NKZ 19: 417, letter #2181, 12 April 1945, to Shin’ichi Hisamatsu. Cf. Yusa (Citation2002, p. 330 and fn 88). [76] NKZ 12: 289; from The problem of Japanese culture [] (1940). [77] Takeuchi Yoshinori set forth a radical form of this opposition between Eastern Nothingness and Western Being by stating in 1959: ‘Whenever the discussion arises concerning the problem of encounter between being and non-being, Western philosophers and theologians, with hardly an exception, will be found to align themselves (p. 147) on the side of being. This is no wonder. The idea of “being” is the Archimedean point of Western thought. Not only philosophy and theology, but the whole tradition of Western civilization has turned around this point. … All is different in Eastern thought and Buddhism. The central notion from which Oriental religious intuition and belief as well as philosophical thought have been developed is the idea of “nothingness”. To avoid serious confusion, however, it must be noted that East and West understand non-being or nothingness in entirely different ways.’ Quoted in Dilworth (Citation1987, pp. 146–147). Originally printed on p. 292 of Yoshinori (Citation1959). [78] NKZ 4: 6, from From the acting to the seeing [] (1967). [79] NKZ 7: 429–430, from Sequel to basic problems of philosophy: The dialectical world [] (1934). [80] NKZ 7: 432. [81] NKZ 8: 430, ‘Practice and objectt knowledge: The standpoint of knowledge in the historical world’ []; in [ 252,253,254 1 9 3 7 3 ~ 5 ]. [82] Piovesana (Citation1997, p. 88). [83] Piovesana (Citation1997, p. 120). [84] NKZ 11: 170, from [] 1944. [85] NKZ 15: 329, from the 1913–1914 Lectures on ‘Religion’ []. Cf. Yusa (Citation1998, p. 23). [86] NKZ 1: 185; Nishida (Citation1965, p. 229); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 164). [87] NKZ 1: 186; Nishida (Citation1965, p. 230); Nishida (Citation1990, p. 164). [88] NKZ 15: 330. {The Divine–human relationship of true religion entails … discarding the self and residing in God …. Bernard of Clairvaux claimed that there are four levels of love. In the first, human beings love God for their own sake. In the second, human beings love God, but only for their own sakes. In the third, human beings love only God. In the fourth, human beings love themselves for God's sake. This is the true relationship between God and human beings.} [89] NKZ 6: 417, from The self-realizational determination of Nothingness. [90] NKZ 7: 432–433. [91] NKZ 7: 218; cf. Dilworth's translation, p. 108. [92] NKZ 19: 46; 21 September 1938; letter #1281. Note that Nishida uses the English word ‘image’ here, with no Japanese equivalent. [93] NKZ 10: 70, from Introduction to practical philosophy (1940), which Nishida strongly recommended to Takizawa in a letter #1494, of 30 September 1940 (NKZ 19: 130). [94] NKZ 11: 410. [95] NKZ 11: 428. [96] NKZ 11: 438. [97] NKZ 11: 434–435. The religious relation (shūkyōteki kankei []) is introduced on p. 433. [98] NKZ 11: 140. Ueda's statement appears on p. 57 of the work, Absolute Nothingness and God [], which anthologizes the contributions of Nishitani, Takeuchi, Waldenfels, Jan Van Bragt and others in the 31 March–12 April 1980 conference, ‘The Kyoto School (the Tradition of Nishida and Tanabe) and Christianity’. [99] Parkes in May (Citation1996, pp. 99–100), quoting Suzuki (Citation1989). [100] Yagi (Citation1999, p 106): ‘Whereas Nishida … was at least to some extent still bound to Western conceptuality, Hisamatsu and Nishitani were both free to use conceptions more adequate to Buddhist thinking.’Consider also Yagi (Citation1998, p. 67): ‘While Nishida often worked with the concepts of German philosophy, his students Nishitani and Hisamatsu wrote in a more genuinely Buddhist language.’ [101] Yagi (Citation1998, p. 73): ‘It seems to me that Nishida is not free from the Hegelian identification of thinking and being (facts). But his successors, Nishitani and Hisamatsu, appear to have overcome this problematic to make room for a genuinely Buddhist picture of reality in a purely religious language.’ Note that Yagi cooperatively produced the works Religion of awakening [] (1980) with Hisamatsu and Immediate experience: The history of the Western spirit g and religion [] (1989) with Nishitani, in order to respond to Takizawa's criticism that Yagi's notions of “pure-intuition” and “immediate-experience” are inadequate to explain soteriological transformation. [102] James Heisig (Citation2001, p. 20) notes: ‘Of the three [philosophers Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani], Nishida is clearly the least indebted to eastern sources, and Nishitani the most. But the advance of scholarship on eastern philosophy was not their concern. On the contrary, in not a few cases there readings of classical texts, including Buddhist materials, can even appear arbitrary to those of a more philological or text-critical bent.’ Nishida's own creative adoption and reformulations of Buddhism are examined in Kopf (Citation2005). [103] Quoted and translated in Horio (Citation1998, p. 158): ‘In Professor Nishida's times the road to the shrine led straight to the sanctuary. In our times, though, the road crumbled before reaching the sanctuary steps, so we couldn’t reach the inner shrine as people before us could. At best we had to approach by way of a roundabout route.’ [104] Quoted and translated in Yusa (Citation1998, p. 17), quoting Nishitani's Kitarō Nishida: The person and his thought [] (1985). ‘In their search for the self, Sōseki Natsume and Nishida proceeded forward from within the center of the self instead of lapsing into an inward spiral regression, as our generation of writers did. In the latter case, the deeper the self delved into itself the more confused it became, until finally one lost sight of the self … and was left open to nihility …. In contrast, Sōseki's and Nishida's approach began with the self as center, then took a forward leap towards something beyond the self—something for the self to base itself upon—and sought the “self” there. … Perhaps Sōseki and Nishida were able to maintain this attitude because they stood within the spiritual tradition of the East.’ [105] Ueda (Citation1996, p. 195), cf. also fn 24. [106] NKC 9: 108; Nishitani (Citation1991, p. 77); cf. also Kopf (Citation2004, p. 86). [107] Cited from the FAS website: http://www.ne.jp/asahi/fas/soc/about/aboutuse.html (last accessed on 6 October 2007). [108] Hisamatsu writes: ‘… during the war … Zen became opportunistic and, rather than becoming a master (shu []) of circumstances, tended to have its mind snatched by circumstances …’; Ives in Heisig and Maraldo (Citation1995, p. 21), quoting Hisamatsu (Citation1948, pp. 144–145). [109] Hoekema (Citation2004, p. 110). [110] Takizawa (Citation2004, pp. 48–49). [111] Tokiyuki Nobuhara notes that this ‘gloomy face’ is a quote from the New Testament: Matthew 6:16 [Jesus said]: ‘Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.’ (Nobuhara, Citation2006, p. 7.) [112] Takizawa (Citation1971), ‘Kitarō Nishida’, TKC 1: 432. [113] Takizawa (Citation2004, pp. 49–50). [114] TKC 1: 431: ‘[Nishida] went so far as to … use … the predicates of Christian Theology, such as “Creator and creation”, “God and Satan”, “Last Judgment”, and other such expressions which the academic world considers to be extremely dangerous. [115] Takizawa stated late in his life, in 1979: ‘Indeed, the expressions “Topos and what is situated within the Topos”, “transcendent predicate plane”, and so on, at the beginning of what I have called “Late Nishida Philosophy” … demonstrate what cannot easily be reversed’ (Takizawa, Citation1987, p. 205). [116] Takizawa records Nishida as using both the Japanese term ‘kami’ [] and the English term ‘God’ []. [117] This quote is my own harmony of three statements made by Takizawa, found in TKC 1: 441, TKC 2: 521–522, and Takizawa (Citation1976, p. 87), the last source being reprinted in Sakaguchi (Citation1989, p. 164). [118] Furuya (Citation1997, p. 54). [119] NKZ 15: 474. Nishida again refers to Gogarten (Citation1926) in 1932 in The self-realizational determination of Nothingness, which in NKZ 6: 417 states: ‘That which grounds the self in the bottom of the self must in all cases be thought of as a Thou (nanji []). … Just as Gogarten has said, the historical world consists of the encounter between I and thou (watashi to nanji []); herein the historical world is formed (Gogarten, Ich glaube an den dreieinigen Gott, chpt 4).’ [120] For example, Nishida's diary of 2 February 1936 reads: ‘I am beginning to read Barth's Epistle to the Romans’ (NKZ 17: 463). In a postcard of 20 August 1939, Nishida wrote to Takizawa stating ‘When I am able to meet you, I would like to talk with you about Karl Barth’ (Sakaguchi, Citation2003, pp. 12–13). [121] Heidegger (Citation1971, pp. 9–10). [122] NKZ 18:44, letter #29, 11 November 1897, to his friend Ryōkichi Yamamoto. Nishida is referencing Matthew 6: 26–27 from the Bible, wherein Jesus says: ‘… do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?’ (New American Standard translation. Note that Nishida has referenced the King James translation, which in the last sentence reads ‘… Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature? …’) [123] NKZ 18: 72, letter #51, 29 November 1903, to Ryōkichi Yamamoto: ‘I have read Ōnishi's Ethics. His ideas are vivid, detailed, clear, and interesting. I hope I will be able to write like this.’ [124] Ogawa (Citation1975, p. 47). Nishida's first mention of Kierkegaard in print was in ‘Self-realizationism’ (jikaku shugi []) (1904). [125] All of these theologians appear explicitly in Nishida's first major publication, (An inquiry into the good)—see Nishida (Citation1990). [126] Maeda, quoted from the official website of the Katsumi Takizawa Association at http://www.takizawakatsumi.com [127] Nishida's personal letters and diary are included in the Complete works of Nishida (NKZ). Consider Nishida's diary entry of 4 February 1945: ‘Due to the kindness of Kan, Pastor Hiroshi Takeuchi from Yokohama will bring Barth's Church Dogmatics I-2. … On the B-29 air raid of the 15th, Kanda, Asakusa, and so forth were incinerated and about 30,000 people were burned to death without the slightest notification’ (cited in Kobayashi, Citation2000, p. 119). Nishida's last letter to Kan in the next month, just months before Nishida's own death and the end of World War II, also resonates with the disaster of war, expressing with great consternation how difficult conveying items through the postal service had become. Nevertheless, Nishida's eagerness to read Barth is clear, as well as the presence of Barth's student Takizawa in the background. [128] Piovesana (Citation1997, p. 119). [129] Piovesana (Citation1997, p. 116). [130] Yusa (Citation2002, pp. 238–239). Yusa's whole chapter describes Nishida's happy marriage to Koto. [131] Postcard of 4 January 1943 from Nishida to Takizawa. Not in NKZ, but appears for the first time in Sakaguchi (Citation2003, p. 20). This level of intimacy appears to be reserved only for Nishida's close associates, as Nishida also informs his respected friend D. T. Suzuki of the fever endured by his wife, Koto Nishida, between 21 May and 15 June 1943 (NKZ 19: 498, letter #2345 and 19: 499, letter #2347). [132] Yusa (Citation2002, p. 6). [133] Barth himself noted the affinity between Reformed Christianity and Pure Land Buddhism, and in CD I/2 §17, called Pure Land Buddhism a ‘Japanese Protestantism’ (p. 342) and a ‘providential dispensation’ (p. 340). [134] Furuya (Citation1997, pp. 54–55, 80, 113, 124). [135] NKZ 19: 128; letter #1488; 22 September 1940, NKZ 18:497, letter #846, 2 July 1934; both to the Heideggerian Gōichi Miyake. [136] Heidegger's letter was dated 20 October 1929. See Safranski (Citation1994, p. 299). [137] Yomiuri Newspaper [], 28 May 1933, reprinted in Asami Hiroshi, ‘Fukkoku sanpen’, pp. 139–40. Yusa (Citation2002, p. 255, fn 34). [138] Nishida stated ‘unfortunately, it appears as if Barth may have been expelled by the Nazis’; quoted by Takizawa in TKC 1: 441, TKC 2: 521–522 and Takizawa (Citation1976, p. 87), the last source being reprinted in Sakaguchi (Citation1989, p. 164). [139] Neske and Kettering (Citation1990, pp. 62–63). [140] Barth (Citation1969). [141] Karl Barth Archives (KBA), S. Radhakrishnan, Madras, 26 October 1967; Barth's answer is in Barth (Citation1975, pp. 447–448), cited in Hoekema (Citation2004, p. 105). [142] Hoekema (Citation2004, p. 110). [143] NKZ 6: 165, 168, 172–173, 179; NKZ 7: 179–180; NKZ 11: 173. [144] Takizawa reported Nishida's statement three times, in TKC 1: 441, TKC 2: 521–522, and Takizawa (Citation1976, p. 87), the last source being reprinted in Sakaguchi (Citation1989, p. 164). [145] Parkes in May (Citation1996, p. 115, fn 83). [146] Barth, preface to the first edition of his The Epistle to the Romans (Barth, Citation1919). Cf. also Hartwell (Citation1964, p. 10). [147] Cf. CD III/4, §56: ‘Freedom in Limitation’, pp. 665–666. Note also CD II/2, p. 655: ‘The grace of God in Jesus Christ is beautiful, and it radiates joy and awakens humor.’ Note also the discussion in II/1, wherein Barth states ‘God must be the object of joy’, p. 654, and wherein God's grace is described as radiating joy and humor, p. 655. [148] This is from three statements made by Takizawa, found in TKC 1: 441, TKC 2: 521–522, and Inquiring of religion (1976, p. 87), the last source being reprinted in Sakaguchi (Citation1989, p. 164). [149] NKZ 11: 397. [150] NKZ 1: 173; Nishida (Citation1990, p. 153) (, 1911); NKZ 15: 223, 224, 225 (Lecture on ‘Religion’, 1913–1914); NKZ 11: 409 (Topological logic and the religious worldview, 1945). Consider also NKZ 12: 30 (1937), ‘At the point at which facts can be conceived of as determining themselves, we are always making contact with some Entity (aru mono [])—that is to say, we are always connected with God.’ [151] NKZ 9: 145, ‘The standpoint of individuals in the historical world’ [] (1938). [152] NKZ 7: 428. [153] NKZ 11: 444, 441, 442. [154] NKZ 11: 442, 444. [155] NKZ 11: 409–410. [156] Consider the conclusions of Ryōmin Akizuki, Tōru Suzuki, and Tamotsu Maeda: Ryōmin Akizuki writes ‘I have formerly stated that the ‘logic of inverse correspondence’ of Professor Nishida's later years can be seen as Nishida's response to Professor Takizawa's critique of Nishida's monism’ (Akizuki and Seiichi, Citation1990, pp. 88–89) and “Due to Mutai's essay [about inverse-response] …, I arrived at the core of the logic of Nishida Philosophy, [which is the notion of inverse-response]. I believe this [core] was the response of Nishida himself to the simple and frank query of Takizawa as Nishida's disciple. Takizawa's query, which I touched upon beforehand, was ‘whether it is accurate to express this kind of movement of dialectical reality monistically, [as the self-determination of the dialectical universal].’ (Akizuki (Citation1996, p. 360)—Akizuki is quoting from pp. 46–47 of Takizawa (Citation2004).) Tōru Suzuki writes in his commentary on Takizawa: ‘[T]he later Nishida Philosophy may be said to have provided an answer to Takizawa's criticism. Therefore, Takizawa's elucidation and inquiry in Basic problems of Nishida philosophy … refers to the early and middle Nishida and not the later.’ (TKC 5 in the Appendix, p. 7.) Tamotsu Maeda writes o
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