Wakamatsu on Izutsu CH 04
CHAPTER FOUR
God's apostle to deliver the Koran to the world, was a nadhrr (admonisher). . . His mission as Prophet was spent in giving warnings." As Izutsu's words suggest, the reason Islam became a religion was only because these warnings went unheeded. The Koran is a compendium of admonitions. If the experiences of Muhammad that came to fruition in the Koran were truly mystical experiences, the words that were spoken could not have been those of Muiammad the human being. The reason the Koran is holy scripture is not because the Prophet Mulammad had a part to play in it, but rather because Muhammad annihilated himself to the point that even his afterimage disappeared and thereby became the passageway for the WORD of Cod.
It was Mularnmad's insight as Prophet that it was not the Jews or the Christians, but he himself who had inherited in its entirety the spirituality of Abraham and Jesus.
It had to be a religion that was neither Judaism nor Christianity, a far purer, far more authentic Israelite religion than those historical religions that had gone astray. It had to be a religion that transcended history. truly the direct embodiment of "eternal religion" (ad-din
al.qaiyirn)... . Islam s not a new religion; it was essentially an old
religion.
An "eternal religion" —this is perhaps the original nature of Islam that flows from its U rgrund, but it also clearly expresses what Izutsu saw in Islam. A study of Cod that transcends sects and denominations can only be articulated by someone who has had an experience of God that transcended religions. The "eternal religion" of which Izutsu speaks here is identical to Yoshinori Moroi's llrreligion.
(A 1A 11 I 11 it I I\ I.
Catholicism
The Saint and the Poet
IN THE FIRST CHAPTER 1 mentioned that, when Izutsu was writing Shinpi Ietsugaku 0949: Philosophy of mysticism), he believed that Greek mystic philosophy had not been brought to completion by Plotinus, but rather had flourished under, and reached perfection in, Christian mysticism. The following passage is from the preface written in 1978 at the time a revised version of Shin p1 tetszagaku was published.
Perhaps as a reaction against the atmosphere at home, where an exces-sivclv rigid Oriental mentailti prevailed. I was far more fascinated with the West than with the East. In particular. I was deeply affected by ancient Greek philosophy and Creek literature. But that was not all; I was possessed by the highly tendentious view that Greek mysticism as such had not ended, but had entered Christianity and undergone its hue development, reaching its culmination in the Spanish Cannclitc Order's mysticism of love and in John of the Cross especially.'
If Izutsu was saying that mystic philosophy's only legitimate line of descent is the one that leads to John of the Cross. then he must accept the criticism that this was indeed a "tendentious" notion, Yet it would be no one other than Izutsu himself who, in his later years, oiild clearly show that not only Islam and Buddhism hut the other Oriental
CHAPTER FOUR
A CONTEMPORARY AND THE BIOGRAPHY OF WE PROPHET
Why do people need to believe in a religion? How can they catch a glimpse of the trutfi of religion without delving deeply into the inevitable problem of the subject of-faith? Nowadays religion may be nothing more than a humanistic concept, and yet "it is obvious that religious people do not fear being included in this term. That is because when it comes to the position of an inexhaustible subject it is intolerable that the pressing problem of their own souls should be flattened out and reduced to a simple objective concept." Religion is, after all, he says, nothing other than the "locus of the individual subject"' It would be wrong to see in this statement the narrow-minded view that only believers can discuss religion. The very idea of a person converting to some religion or other already relativizes or standardizes religion and ignores the "locus of the individual subject," which is faith.
Membership in a particular religion is not a problem. But if Moroi were asked whether it is impossible for someone who is not a seeker after transcendental Reality to discuss religion, he would probably say yes. "Such being the case, how would it be possible for them, when they try to discuss religion, to have a grasp of its true essence without reflecting on the living whole of it in conformity with their subjective life?" Moroi writes. "Serious inquiry into religion must be attempted by approaching its true nature with profound sympathy."6
At the time Shukyoteki shut aisei no ronri was published, there were no authorial revisions; it was a posthumous work. If his study of the development of religious mysticism was his scholarly magnum opus, this posthumous book proves that Yoshinori Moroi was a rare individual thinker. He was also a philosopher who had the requisite background and ability to construct an ideological system rare for Japan.
In-depth discussions of mysticism, or what Izutsu calls the "mystical experience," inevitably delve into the origins of religion. Latent in such discussions is the question of whether human beings are capable of encountering and achieving union with God without the mediation of dogma. commandments, rituals, holy scriptures or faith-based communities such as churches and temples. This, in turn, is connected to the fundamental question of whether people can come in direct contact with the Transcendent without religion at all. When Christian scholastic theology entered a blind alley. Eckhart appeared and cleared the way for German mysticism. When lslm became inflexible in its interpretation of its doctrines and commandments, llallij appeared and revived the spirituality of Mul:iammad. Massignon saw a high degree of agreement in the spirituality of these two men. Just before his death Eckhart was accused of being a heretic; IIalhij was executed as a criminal. It was no accident that they both were shunned in their clay and met unfortunate ends. Both spoke words that broke through the confusion of their times and ushered in the light, but for those accustomed to darkness, the light may sometimes seem more like a threat than the bestowal of grace. Suhrawardi, the twelfth-century Persian who spoke of the metaphysics of light, was assassinated. His Japanese contemporary Hönen, the founder of the Jodo (Pure Land) school, in his later sears was exiled to an island, the virtual equivalent of the death penalty. Jesus was crucified, and most of his disciples ended their lives as niartvrs.
Yoshinori Moroi was a believer in Tenri-k-yr).'roshihiko Izutsu was a mystic who did not believe in any particular religion. The idea that Izutsu was a Muslim is nothing more than a myth. He was not. He did, however, have an incontrovertible experience of God. Philosophy for Izutsu would he nothing less than the way to verify this experience. That is the reason he was able to find traces of religion, i.e. faith, in ancient Greek philosophy. For Moroi and Izutsu, "mysticism" is not a word that signifies a particular ideology or set of beliefs; it is a straight road, an attitude toward life that regards the mysteries as the main source of righteousness. Mysticism does not reject faith-based communities. Rather, true mysticism serves as a matrix for them. Toward the end of his life, Bergson saw Catholicism as the perfect complement to Judaism and confessed his belief in it. What led him to Christianity were the mystics whom lie discussed in Ls deux sources de la morale €1 de la religion (1932; The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, iq;). For Bergson, a Jew, Christianity was not a new religion. Wasn't what he discovered in Catholicism, rather, a way of returning to the llrreligion?
In Shukvoteki shutaisei no ronri, Yoshinori Moroi discusses the topic of [Irreligion. Urreligion does not mean the oldest religion or primitive religion. It does not belong to a particular time, but exists
CHAPTER FOUR A CONTEMPORARY AND TIF HIOCLWHY OF THE PROPHET
in "time" in a qualitative sense. "Time" does not belong on a measurable temporal axis. J.M. MiThy said that what Dostoevsky depicted was beyond time rather than in time; Urreligion, too, implies nothing less than the existence of this kind of "time." It is also the dimension in which Eliade's homo religiosus lives. Mysticism breaks through spa-tio-temporal limitations and leads people to the site of ur-revelation. in other words, to the "now-ness" of tirreligion. If a true dialogue among religions is to come about, it will likely not OCCUI by haggling over dogma; it will be realized in the silence of the mystics.
The reason Yoshinori Moroi was able to have such a superb feeling for Islam is not unrelated to his being a believer in Tenri-kvo. The fact that it is a monotheism, the position and role of its founder and prophet, its holy land, and the details surrounding the origin of its sacred texts, their revelation and systematic compilation—a mere glance at this list shows that Tenri-kyö is far closer to Islam than it is to Christianity. rreflrjk,o is now engaged in an active dialogue with Catholicism, but if it were to attempt a similar dialogue with Islam. it is apt to discover a new dimension that it would be unable to find in its exchanges with Christianity.
Moroi's speculations on the persona of God, which he developed in his essay on Tenri-kvô dogmatic theology, could well be called an attempt to go beyond the veil of the denominations of world religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam and trace religions back to their divine origin. Yoshinori Moroi develops his argument using not only terms such as Creator and Savior for God's persona, but also Manifester, Protector, Revealer, Designator, Beginning of the World, All-Embracing One and Inspirer. As he describes it. Tenri-kyo is a monotheism pure and simple. As the works of Yoshinori Moroi make abundantly clear, the thesis that Japan is rooted in a polytheistic culture that is incompatible with monotheism is specious and naive. Had he been able to proceed further with his systematic construction of a Ten-rikvologv and a dogmatic theology of Ten ri-kyU. he might have shown analogies that transcend time and space between the Cod revealed in Japan and Jerusalem respectively.
What he never lost sight of was the relation of"analogy." An analogy basically connotes comparable phenomena. But these phenomena are not merely similar. If that were all, there probably would be no need to discuss them further. Analogy signifies that operations of a similar quality are unfolding dynamically among different entities. What Toshihiko Izutsu thoroughly explored in Sufism and Taoism is not that these two philosophical worldvicvs are similar. It is nothing less than to cause them both to manifest Oriental spirituality analogically.
The suggestion that monotheism is based on a paternal principle and polytheism on a maternal one has been heard many times. Some say that the God of the Koran is, first and foremost, a paternal Cod who causes fear and trembling. But seeing only fatherhood, the embodiment of sternness and judgment, in the omniscient, omnipotent one God denies God's perfection. This is not the true nature of God but only a graphic reflection of the limitations of the human beings who contemplate Cod. The following passage is found in Moral's essay on Tenri-kyo dogmatic theology: "Cod the Parent wished to save human beings from their many cares and sufferings and bestowed the merit of salvation by graciously appearing before them."17 Cod loves us as parents love their children; this view of God runs throughout Yoshinori Moroi's theology. It is perhaps for that reason that Ten ri-Iwo calls the Transcendent "God the Parent."
"A belief in the Cod of mercy's countenance of bright light, which is the converse of the Cod of wrath and outwardly a complete antithesis to it, is a fundamental characteristic of Judaic personal theism.
i'he Koran describes the terrih'ing Lord of judgment yet at the same time attempts to convey His joyful message as 'good news.' In fact, the boundless mercy and loving kindness of God are emphasized everywhere in the Koran." These are not the words of Yoshinori Moroi but of Toshihiko Izutsu in Mahometto.'8 If God willed it, the world would disappear in an instant. The fact that the world now exists is due to God's loving kindness. The God manifested in the Koran is a Cod of maternal mercy before being a God of judgment. This is the spirituality that Toshihiko Izutsu discovered in Islam at an early date. Like Pascal, he discovered what he had already known. It is fair to think that the God of mercy and loving kindness was, in fact, the spirituality of Toshihiko lzuu himself.
CHAPrFR FOUR
'Biography of the Prophet
4'
The use of '4Muharnmado" as the Japanese approximation of the Prophet's name is relatively recent. Japanese formerly referred to him as "Mahometto," perhaps following French usage. Toshihiko Izutsu's Mahometto came out in 1952, a year after Eliade's Chamanisme was published. In that same year, Yoshinori Moroi wrote a monograph entitled "Muhamaddo ni okeru shinpi taiken no mondai: genshi Isuramu no tassawuffu" (The question of Mtilamrnad's mystical experience: The flowering of taanwuf in early Islam). The following year, 1953, Yoshinori Moroi submitted his doctoral dissertation, Shukyo shin pishugi has-sei no kenkvu, which includes this essay, to the University of Tokyo. When the dissertation was published in 1966, the title was changed to "tile question of the Prophet Mul:iammad's mystical experience."
The question in point is found in Chapter 53 of the KOran.
In the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate. I swear by the selling star, Your companion was not mistaken nor was he led astray. Nor does he speak out of self-indulgent emotions. It is, indeed, nothing other than a revelation that he reveals. The one of mighty power taught him. The one who has strength (taught him). And so he truly acquired skill. And he was on the highest level of the horizon and approached from there. And lie bowed. Thus, he was the distance of two bow-lengths or even nearer than that. Then he turned to his servant and revealed what he revealed. The latter's heart did not misrepresent what he saw. Do you, then, try to dispute with hirn about what he saw?'9
"This passage is extremely suggestive," Yoshinori Moroi writes. "In all the chapters of the Qur'an [Moroi's spelling], there is probably nothing like it that conveys such subtle information about the expeni-ence."2° These are strong words. Considering that the context in which they were written was a doctoral dissertation, we must read them as even further emphasizing what he felt in his innermost heart. The key to a basic understanding of the KOran is hidden in this passage, Moroi would perhaps say, and those who overlook it have lost sight of something important.
A CON1EMPORARY ANI) TilE BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET
rll.lik Izutsu translated the Koran twice. The passage cited below is taken from volume 2 of the first version, published in 1958, vIiicli Yoshinori Moroi might have read. When the second translation came out, Moroi was already in the other world. Here is Toshihiko Izutsu's translation of the same passage.
In the name of the profoundly merciful, all-compassionate Allah. By the setting star...
Your colleague is not misguided; he is not mistaken. He is not babbling baseless fancies. These are all divine oracles that are being revealed. In the first place, the one who first taught (the revelation) to that man is the possessor of tcrrih'ing power, a lord excelling in intelligence. His shape distinctly caine into view far off beyond the high horizon, and, as he looked on, lie effortlessly, effortlessly descended and drew near; his nearness was almost that of two bows, no, perhaps even closer than that. iiicn it revealed the main purpose of the oracle to the manservant.
sWliv would the heart lie about what he certainly saw with his own eyes? Is it your intention to make this or that objection about what he ftdv saw?2'
It has to be said that Toshihiko Izutsu's translation is unique. And yet it is probably not enough to SCflSC only a difference in tone here. A fine translation is always an excellent commentary. Both translations faithfully convey the "readings" of the two men. The difference in their translations is, in other words, the difference in their personal experiences of Islam. I shall deal with this topic later when I discuss the Koran. The issue here is a different one.
As Yoshinori Moroi points out, the question is, "did Mubammad in fact see Allah?" or was it an angel that the Prophet saw. 'l'lie "shape [that) distinctly came into view far off beyond the high horizon" in Thshihiko Izutsu's translation, he would come to say, was the archangel Gabriel. Having reviewed the interpretations of B. Shricke and Josef Horovitz, Yoshinori Moroi came to the conclusion that what MuI.iam-iiiad saw was not Allah, as they had said, nor was it an angel. "It was Allah as the subject of the Allah nature."" The technical term "Allah nature" is unique to Yoshinori Moroi. Allah does not appear qua Allah;
CHAPTER FOLIR
A CONTEMPORARY AND THE ØK)CRAPHY O ThE pRoPiItr
human beings are iilcapablc of perceiving him through their senses. Even the Prophet is no exception. Cod is invisible and unknowable.
"When Paul was on the road to Damascus. he encountered a light, heard the voice of Jesus saying, "Why are you persecuting me?" and was knocked to the ground. Led by the hand, he entered the city. and for the next three days. his eyes saw nothing, and he was unable to eat or drink. The light that Paul saw was not God. God, who is infinite, is light, but that does not mean that light is God. Paul saw a light and heard Jesus voice. For Paul, God and Christ are synonymous. The mystery of Christianity resides in that synonymy. To borrow Yoshinori Morois words, one might say that this light was not Christ; it was his "Christ nature."
One wonders whether Toshihiko Izutsu might not have seen an "Allah nature" in Chapter 53 of the Koran. In later years, in the series of lectures published as Koran o yoniu (1983; Reading the Koran), he deals with this chapter as the classic example of Mul,iammad's vision experience.3 Although in his translations he regards the one who appeared as the archangel Gabriel, he adds the reservation that there is room for scholarly debate. But if it was not Gabriel, then a human being saw Allah, he says, and that causes problems from a theological perspective. He left no further comments on this subject. If he had gone on and done so, he might have developed an angelology, a theory of angels. "The only person able to respond to the call of the Western philosophical tradition and approach a solution to it head-on was St Thomas. Herein lies the profound historical significance of his speculations on angels."4 "The solution to it" is the question of the divine nature, i.e. the existence of an "Allah nature" that Yoshinori Moroi noted. Ever since the time of Shinpi tetsugaku, the problem of angels was on Izutsu's mind.
What are angels? The fact that angels are a vibrant reality not only in Christianity but also in lsIiii is evident from the preceding quotes; for Japanese, they may be easier to understand if we think of the Bodhi-sattvas, who are the attendants of Nyorai. Angels have no will of their own. They are messengers who convey God's will. For Toshihiko Izutsu, real angels always express "Christ nature" and "Allah nature." Indeed, Izutsu would probably say they cannot be called "angels" if they do not do so. The subject of angels would arise once again in his later years as main topics in his discussion of "the angelology of WORD" and "the angel aspect of WORD" in Ishiki to honshi1su.
'l'he first work by Toshihiko Izutsu after he returned froni Iran in 1979 was Isuramu seitan (1979; The birth of Isthm)!" Part One, the biography of Mulamniad, was a reworking of the older hook Maliosn-etto, which modified its "extravagantly figurative" expression. The version contained in his selected works (iqo) is also the newer one, which he further revised and enlarged. In 1989, however, Toshihiko Izutsu republished the original version of Mahornetto. 'The reason for doing so, he wrote, was "that, despite its many flaws, I have come to believe that there is, on the whole, an interesting quality and a special
• I • • I I I I • I • • 1
flavor in the original work, and only in the original work."
When he republished Shin p1 tetsugaku in 1978 and combined Arabia shisoshi and Arabia tetsugaku and published them as Isuraniu shisôshi ('975; History of Islamic thought) while he was still in Iran, he commented on the significance of their republication, saving that these were works lie had written as a young man and that they could only have been written at such a time. That does not mean, however, that he ventured to republish them in versions faithful to the original, as he did in the case of Mahometto. An overview of intellectual history and a biography of the Prophet are different genres, and yet the significance he placed on the republication of Mahometto is profound in the sense that it was a return to his starting point.
Reading Mahornetto calls to mind Hideo Kobayashi-, writings on Rimbaucl. Not because they are both works by young men in which they describe the God of their youth, but because they are candid snapshots of their authors' entrance into the other world. Moreover, like Kobayashi, Toshihiko Izutsu's biography of the Prophet and his other works of this period, rather thaii being scholarly monographs, contain an element of literary criticism, what Baudelaire called poetry on a higher level. That is not just my own impressionistic opinion. From a glance at the chronology of his writings, it is certainly possible to catch a glimpse of Thshihiko lzutsu the literary critic in the essays on Clan-del and the other works around the time of Roshia bun gaku (Russian
CHAPTER FOUR
A CONTEMPORARY ANI) 111F. RI(CRAPHY OF 111F. PROPHET
literature) and Roshiateki ningen (1953; Russian humanity) that were written just before or alter Makmefto.
The introduction to Mahometto cites a passage from the beginning of Goethe's Faust.
lhr naht euch wieder, schwankende Gestalten! Die fruh sich einst dem triiben Buck gezeigt. Versuch' ich wohi euch diesmal lest zu halten? FuhI' ich mein Hen noch jenem Wahn geneigt? lhr drangt euch zu! nun gut. so mögt ihr walten, \Vie ihr atis Dunst und Nebel urn mich stcigt Mein Busen fUhit sich jugendlich erschUttert Vom Zauberhauch, der euren Zug umwittert.
(Once more you near me. wavering apparitions That early showed before the turbid gaze. Will now I seek to grant you definition. My heart essay again the former daze? You press me! Well. I yield to your petition, As all around, you rise from mist and haze; What wafts about your train with magic glamor Is quickening ms' breast to youthful tremor.)
ZS
Faust was not a product of Goethe's imagination. He believed in the actual existence of the other world, that real life was located there. Had that not been the case, Goethe would not have needed to apply seven seals to the container in which he placed Faust after completing it. Izutsu also alludes to Goethe in Shinpi tetsugaku. Citing a passage from J.P. Eckermann's Gesprache mit Goethe 0836-1848; Goethes Conversations with J.P. Eckermann, 1850), "Ich denke mir die Erde mit ihrem Dunstkreise gleichnisweise als ein grosses lebendiges Wesen, das im ewigen Em- unci Ausatmen begriffen ist" (1 compare the earth and her atmosphere to a great living being, perpetually inhaling and exhaling), he calls Goethe "the classic example of someone who has experienced the World Soul.`9 Standing alone before the universe, detached from time and space, liberated from religion and from ideological
dogmas, the mind is suddenly connected to its life form," then led to the other world. When Izutsu thinks of Muhammad, he would probably say, he is always led before the gate to the other world that Goethe describes. Izutsu called Muhammad "the hero of the spiritual world." For Izutsu, ills the "spiritual world" that constitutes "reality."
Mahometto is a strange and wonderful work. What clearly remains ever time I read it is not the merchant who is transformed into the Prophet, but rather the vast Arabian landscape expectantly awaiting the Prophet's arrival. Perhaps that was the author's intention. Mat the thirty-eight-year-old Izutsu attempted to write, it would be fair to say. was not an objective biography of the Prophet, but rather the recollections of someone who had accompanied the author's hero. Izutsu does not deal with the "Prophet Muhammad"; instead he tries empir-icallv to follow the path that Mubamillad took to become a prophet and an apostle. As for the works on Mulammad written prior to this brief biography. he says, most of them are not "biographies" but merely legends"; his own objective, he declares, is demythologization. On the other hand, however, he does not conceal the passionate emotion welling up within him: "A depiction of Muhammad into which my own heart's blood doesn't directly How would be impossible for me to portray." he writes. But does an empirical mind that would elucidate history in the true sense nourish passion, he wonders. "For that reason," he writes, 1 will take the plunge and give myself over completely to the call of the chaotic and confused forms swarming in my breast," then goes on to say:
Forget that you are in the dush and dirt-filled streets of a major city proud of its culture and civilization and let your thoughts go where your imagination leads you thousands of miles beyond the sea to the desolate and lonely Arabian desert. The scorching sun burning relentlessly in the boundless sky, on earth the blistering rocky crags and the vast expanses of sand upon sand as far as the eye can see. It was in this strange and uncanny world that the Prophet Muhammad was born.
170
The Arabian landscape described in Mahometto is not the author's imagination. The writing tells its that. He would probably say that he
CHAPTER FOUR
A CONTEMPORARY AND THE BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET
"saw" it. It is hard to believe he would have had any other reason than this for reviving the original v.ision. The recollections of what he saw and heard are also indelibly inscribed in the passages cited below. Read them, paving attention not just to their meaning but also to the style that he achieved here.
I-tall of this critical biography is devoted to a discussion of the Arab mind during the jcihilTvva before the appearance of Mulammad. Where he finds evidence for it is in the poems of this era. So frequently is poetry cited that this biography can be read as a poetry anthology or an essay on the poems of the jahiliyya period. "The only thing these pre-Islamic Arabs handed down to posterity," Izutsu says, "were the songs of the desert, which truly deserve to be called Arabic literature.""
Ali, enjoy this moment
For in the end death will come to the body. 32
In the background of this poem by Amr lhn Kuithum are a people who have lost sight of eternity. They were by nature realists who did not believe in life after death.
For them eternal life in a world other than this one was out of the question. Eternity, everlasting life in this world, had to be one enjoyed in the flesh. . . . Existence by its very nature is essentially ephemeral -having been mercilessly dashed against the cold iron wall of reality, people had to accept this. And if this world sadly is not to be relied on and human life but a brief sojourn, then it is a waste not to spend at least the short life we have been granted in intense pleasure. And SO People immersed themselves in immorality and debauchery and the search for transient intoxication.33
For those for whom only the phenomena] world is real, the natural conclusion is that the bonds of kinship are proof of their own existence. What confirmed this for the people of the desert, the Bedouin, was the tribe to which they belonged, in other words, blood ties. Tribal laws, traditions and customs determined individual behavior. If a member of one tribe met an untimely end at the hands of another tribe, for the remaining members revenge was "a sacred—quite literally a sacred—solemn duty." But Mubammad, "with a pitying smile for their haughtiness and arrogance, took no account whatsoever of the significance of blood ties and the preeminence of family lineage."" What he preached was just one thing: "A person's nobility does not derive from one's birth or family line; it is measured solely by the depth of one's pious fear of Cod."' Islam is, in fact, thoroughgoing in its insistence on equality in the sight of God. There was even a sect which took the position that someone who had been the object of discrimination in the past could become caliph, the leader of the theocracy, if the profundity of that person's faith were recognized.
Just as people arc absolutely dependent on God, time belongs to eternity. Eternity is real. Superiority of family lineage, which promises glory in this world, has no special significance whatsoever for the attainment of salvation. People exist in order to believe in and warship God, said Muhammad, preaching the absolute nature of piety. He rejected the existing values and customs and even the existing virtues. On the other hand. however, it was the pleasure-seeking realists, people oblivious to transcendence and eternity, those who obeyed the laws of their tribe rather than the laws of Cod. Izutsu writes, who were the verv ones that prepared the way for the coming of Mulammad. AL this time, "If [the Arab people] were not somehow saved, it would have been nothing less than spiritual ruin. The situation was truly becoming more and more urgent."
Above and beyond the relationships of need, hope, supplication and reliance, the reason people seek Cod is the result of the workings of oreksis, the instinctive desire to seek the Transcendent that Aristotle discussed. What Izutsu was looking for in the poems of the jahilTvva were the vestiges of oreksis. The urge that luimans have to return to their ontological origins triggered a chain reaction, Izutsu believed, that resonated and invited the Prophet. But what is desired does not necessarily appear in the desired form. The workings of Cod always exceed human expectations. Before they could obtain the salvation they sought. the Bedouin had to give up the blood ties they had previously considered most important.
At first, Muilanimad had no intention of founding a religion. 'i'hc Mubammad whom Izutsu describes is not the founder of a religion but an admonisher, a Spiritual revolutionary. "Mahoniet, who was sent as
CHAPTER FOUR
A CONTEMPORARY AND TilE 11IOGRAPI4Y OF I1IF PROM"
of religions that he is speaking of here is the scholar who, before regarding religion as an object of scientific study, holds it deeply and indelibly in mind as a "pressing problem of the soul."
According to Moroi's Tenri colleague, Tadamasa Fukava (19122007). when Gabriel Marcel visited rlènri and met Yoshinori Moroi, he was astonished to find someone in the Far East who had read his works so carefully. One wonders whether Moroi met Eliade when the latter visited Japan. Toshihiko Izutsu and Eliade met twice at the Eranos Conference. It took no time for the two of them to understand each other; it was as though they had been close friends for ten years, Izutsu wrote. Eliade came to Japan in August 1958 to attend the Ninth World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions. Yoshinori Moroi's attendance at this conference can be confirmed from photographs taken at the time. Ichiro Hon (1910-1974), whose translations later introduced Eliade to Japan, had met him in Chicago the previous year, but Eliade's fame in Japan in those days was, of course, nothing like what it is today, lithe two of them had met, the encounter with Moroi would likely have left as deep all impression on Eliade as the one with 'Ibshihiko Izutsu did.
Shamanism is central theme for Toshihiko Izutsu that runs through his works from Shinpi tetsugaku (1949) to Ishiki to hons/,itsu (1983). The subtitle of his major English-language book, Sufism and Taoism (1983), is "A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts," but it might just as well have been subtitled "A Study of Oriental Shamanism." At the beginning of the section on Taoist thought in that work, Izutsu deals with the evidence for Lio-tzU the man and Chuang-tzO the man, i.e. for the historical reality of Li Er and Chuang Chou, relying on Shih Chi (Book of History) as well as records handed down by the Confucianists, but at a certain point, as if disavowing these efforts to verify their existence, he says that, as long as the writings attributed to "Lao-tzü" and "Chuang-tai" exist, whether or not they themselves existed as historical figures is only a secondary matter. The true subject is what Lao-tzü calls Tao; a person is only a channel for it. Insofar as the one who speaks is not a human being, but One who transcends human beings, the personal identity of these men is probably not a primary concern.
This insight truly conveys rlbshihik() Izutsu's intellectual outlook. Unlike Moroi, Izutsu does not make a sharp distinction between shamanism and mysticism. He lakes the attitude that a higher order of spirits is quite capable of transmitting a glimpse of the Transcendent. On this point, Yoshinori Moroi and loshihiko Izutsu do not agree. Indeed. Toshihiko Izutsu does not agree with anyone on this matter. As quoted earlier, his view that ancient Greece. while having a shamanistic spirituality, essentially tended toward moIlc)thcism, attests to the originality of Izutsu's experience of Greece.
"The mystical experience is not a human being's experience of God," Izutsu says in his studs' of St Bernard. "It is, rather, God's experience of himself." If Cod seeing God is regarded as the mystical experience, then the human being is somewhere in between, forced to see God with God's eyes and at the same time with his/her own human eyes. Properly speaking, this is beyond the power of human endurance. In Greek mythology, the human Scmele. who asked Zeus to show himself in his true form, lost her life. But this is also the highest favor that can be bestowed on a human being. In the nature of things. people cannot know the Iirgrund of their being through their own power alone, it is only at the instigation of the Transcendent that they are able to do so. The relation between Cod and human is asymmetric and irreversible.
"Urgrund" would become a key concept in Yoshinori Moroi's thought. The German prefix "Fir," meaning "primal," is affixed to the word "Crund" and used as a single word to emphasize our primordial nature. "On reflection, knowing this tlrgrund was not something that human beings are essentially capable of doing. Originally, it was something that was absolutely impossible for them to do.... The Creator knows the (Jrgrund of creatures. tirgrund is perhaps something that is made known only by being told or taught by the One who knows the origin of its formation. [People] are able to know [the truth of their tirgr. und] only by being informed of it."4 This passage is not a scholarly observation; it perhaps ought to be read as a profession of faith by Yoshinori Moroi, the student of Tenri-kyO. But inasmuch as scholarship for him was also a way of cultivating faith, there is probably no need to make a dichotomy between his existential positions as a scholar and as a believer.
CHAPTER FOUR
A CONTEMPORARY ANI) THE BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET
this principle might well be said to have further strengthened the passion and the power of imagination that he invests in substantiating his hypotheses. Mystics often say that the present is joined to eternity; Morn, attempts to find the pathway to eternity in every passage, every word, of the texts.
The subject of the mystical experience is a topic that Toshihiko Izutsu also dealt with, first in Shiupi tetsugaku. He, too, sees only a secondary significance in the mystical phenomena that present themselves in human beings. That is because the subject/agent of the action is not the human being; it is nothing less than the transcendentally Absolute. 1-lunian beings are only passive recipients. lb speak of an "active mystical experience" makes no sense; the true mystical experience is altogether passive. Anyone who talks about mysticism and deals only with the impressions human beings receive, Moroi believes, fails to notice the manifestation of God, who is its subject. The dragon god manifests itself along with the rain, but the god's true purpose cannot be explained by discussing the human beings who are awed by the forces of nature. It may be that the god appeared and caused rain to fall on a village not to bring about an abundant harvest but to save the life of single sick woman.
The phrase "religious mysticism" is a key term for Moroi. He used it to make a sharp distinction between primitive shamanism, on the one hand, and the mysticism found in world religions. Although he does not disavow shamanism, he does not regard it as the same as mysticism. The subject in shamanism is not necessarily the Absolute: it may be the workings not of the One, but of the souls of the dead or a genius Joel, the protective spirit of a place. Rudolf Steiner called the surge of spiritual power that informs an era a Zeitgeist, a "Time Spirit" or a "Spirit of the Age." There may even have been times when such entities spoke. Dionysus and the other gods who appear in Greek mythology may have been the names given to just this sort of spiritual being. SctsuzO Kotsuji would probably have said that this is true even of the name Moses. But inasmuch as they are also creatures, they are not the subject of the "religious mysticism" that Yoshinori Moroi is talking about.
Mircea Eliade said this in reference to the definition of a shaman: They must, first, be a "specialist in the sacred,"' but that is not all; they must know how to use ecstasy for the good of the community to which they belong. Eliade does not recognize as legitimate shamanism a situation in which a shaman repeats a personal experience for arbitrary or obstructive ends and becomes the object of fear and trembling. Shamanism must always he a spiritual exercise that transcends the individual.
Moroi seems to have had a special aim in mind when he intentionally placed the word "religious" before mysticism to create the term "religious mysticism." His use of the word "religious" does not, of course, signify a particular religious sect nor does it denote religions activities. What he is probing into is an intrinsic essence that ought to be called the archetype of religion.
"I wish these legends could also be heard, for they would. . . make those of us who live in the lowlands shudder," reads the preface to the TOno monogatari (1910; Legends of Tono, 1
9).hl The only ones who can speak about a different dimension of reality, no longer visible even to the eyes of religious leaders or literary figures, it says, are the folklorists. This statement is nothing less than the proclamation of the birth of a new academic discipline and an expression of his concern for the times on the part of Kunio Yanagita (1875-1962), the father of Japanese folklore studies. Eliade, the author of Le chamanisme (1951; Shamanism, 1964), had a similar idea. The various religions are busy discussing their own Cod, but if "religion" is regarded as the way by which humankind loves, worships and obeys the Transcendent, then the modern world has long lost sight of religion. Historians, philosophers, ethnologists, psychologists and sociologists may be able to discuss religion, but because they all try to pigeonhole it and understand it using their own methodologies. inevitably the results always end up being only partial. 'i'h.c only one "to present a comprehensive view," in the true sense, of "religious phenomena, the only one who is genuinely able to discuss hierophaiiv. to borrow Eliade 's word, is the historian of religions.
It will come as no surprise that Yoshinori Moroi has written in similar terms. Wasn't it his fervent belief that, in the present day, only "the historian of religions" Is capable of removing the encrustations of dogma and elucidating the inner workings of mysticism? The historian
CHAPTER FOUR
A CONTEMPORARY AND THE IIU)GRAPIfl OF 111L PROPHET
substantive way to overcome the confusions of the present. While on his sickbed not long before he died, Yoshinori Moroi asked Teruaki lida (1929- ), a Tenri colleague t'1io was going to France, to buy him the latest book by Merleau-Pontv. How many people in Japan were actively reading Merleau-Ponty in 1960? Merleau-Pontv's name also appears several times in Ishiki to honshitsu (1983; Consciousness and essence). Toshihiko Izutsu was interested in the thought of Jacques Derrida, wrote essays about him and was personally acquainted with him, but his interest in Merlcau-Ponty was by no means less than his interest in Derrida.
Teruaki lida writes that at one time the University of Kyoto tried to hire Yoshinori Moral. The very fact that Kyoto University would consider hiring someone who had neither publications nor a doctoral degree tells us something about Yoshinori Moroi's standing and his promise as a scholar. When its then president Kokichi Kano 08621942) once tried unsuccessfully to get Kyoto Imperial University to hire the eminent sinologist Konan Naitô (1866—J94.), who was then a high-school teacher in Akita Prefecture, he complained that Kyoto University was a place that would not accept Jesus or the Buddha themselves if they didn't have an advanced degree. An invitation from Kyoto University was also extended to Toshihiko Izutsu. In 1962, the linguistics scholar 1-lisanosuke Izui (1905-1983) tried to hire him as a professor of linguistics. Both Moral and Izutsu declined the invitations. Although they considered going to Kyoto, those close to them would not allow it in the hopes that they would become leading lights at the institutions to which each belonged.
Shamanism and Mysticism
Just as the search for truth is what constitutes daily life for an ascetic, for a scholar of a higher order the way to truth is thinking itself. Rather than the agreement of their interests, what is worth observing in the case of Yoshinori Moroi and Toshihiko izutsu are the similarities and differences in their spirituality. Whereas the soul is always synonymous with the self, the spirit seeks its Creator. Human beings cannot acquire spirituality; they already have it. Spirituality is nothing less than an
instinct, a desire inherent in beings to return to their origins. And isn't salvation the efflorescence of a dormant instinct for spirituality with the help of the light from beyond? Salvation is both a human aspiration and the desire of the One who endowed human beings with a spirit. Some people become aware of this instinct as the result of a serious illness. Yet even when the flesh is in agony, sometimes the spirit rejoices. And sometimes, instead, it soothes the pain and heals the illness.
At the beginning of his major work, Yoshinori Moroi asserts that mysticism really exists. "We acknowledge, first of all, that mysticism is something that exists as an actual fact, and we recognize that it is not simply a product of the imagination, lie writes in his study of the development of religious mysticism.' "\Vc must not adopt an attitude that would subsume phenomena regarded as mystical into other ordinary psychological phenomena, and conclude that mysticism as a unique phenomenon does not exist." Mysticism and mystical experiences are not a matter of altered states of consciousness, nor is what a person thinks or feels during a mystical experience the primary issue; the limitations of the human senses, he says, have no bearing on the mystical reality. This passage might well be called Moroi's manifesto. What is the true intention of the subject who speaks through human beings?—this is the question that ought to be raised, and it is the scholar's responsibility to elucidate that purpose. And if mysticism is an experience of God, he says, the scholar begins the discussion by first acknowledging the existence of God. For Moroi, religion is not found in doctrines drawn up by human agency. It is nothing less than the crystallization of one's present life backed by faith and the traditions of that faith.
Having made this assumption, Moroi puts his outstanding linguistic skills to use and conscientiously assembles texts in their original languages to verify it. Anyone who deals with "religious mysticism." he says, must never become removed from historical fact. Scholarly proof was an inflexible iron law for him. What is required of scholar is not a mystical interpretation but a hard look at history, reading between the lines to discover the "mystery" within. Moreover, lie tries to see God's will in the phenomena that survive as historical facts. Far from impeding Moroi's scholarship, by eliminating the mere play of ideas,
CHAPTER FOUR
A CONTEMPORARY AN hUE I3R)(RAPI1Y oF nIF PROPHET
that he deals with these topics retrospectively, by moving further and further back into time, may perhaps be a matter of scholarly method. but, beyond that, it likely also has a direct bearing on what, for Moroi, was the existential question. In it lies the basic problem of how he himself, living in the modern era far removed from Halthj, can also be connected to the times when prophets appeared. and to the ultimate Source of their prophecy.
It was the Roman Catholic priest Yüji inoue (1927— ), who called the proselytizer Paul "the man who carried Christ."' Though in different forms, tlalläj and Muhammad. too, carried God and dedicated their entire lives to proselytizing. Not all of them were thinkers, yet their "thought" lived after them. Perhaps that is the reason we call people who live their lives in this way apostles. Recall Kierkcgaard's definition of the difference between a genius and an apostle: What a genius discusses, an apostle lives. Remarking on the theme of Mahornetto, his biography of the Prophet, Izutsu writes that the book is "about the subject of possession that forms the core of the Semitic prophetic phenomenon and about the structure of the descent of the divine word (what is called 'revelation'), the unique verbal phenomenon that takes place within it as the topos for it." The Uallaj he discusses was also an Islamic saint who revived the spirituality of Mutiammad as well as a mystic who prepared the way for lbn 'ArabT.
Japan has been unable to produce anyone since Moroi and Izutsu who has not only been deeply moved by IIallj but able to add fresh insights about him. The two men describe the true nature of I3allaj's antecedent by the word "unique," but the manner in which they discuss Mul,ianirnad is also unique. They perceive Muhammad not as the founder of a religious sect or a prophet, but as a mystic of a higher order.
I have said it before, but when Toshihiko Izutsu used the word .4 mystic," he endowed it with his own personal meaning. Recluses who spend all their time in prayer and contemplation; ascetics who subject their bodies to religious austerities; visionaries and those who lose themselves in ecstasy—such people he does not call 'mystics." Mystics earnestly desire the annihilation of self. That is because their ultimate aim is to become the pathway through which the Absolute manifests itself. They hate inflated ideas and do not limit themselves to being contemplative ascetics, for tile believe that their "sacred duty" is not just to reflect upon the truth but to put it into practice. Since mystics reveal themselves through their way of life, their occupation or social status is irrelevant. Moreover, they have no direct relation to any religion or ideology. Religious figures arc not necessarily mystics, nor does being a materialist prevent someone from being a mystic as well.
It was mentioned earlier that most of the Greek and Islamic sages who influenced Toshihiko lzutsu were thinkers, but they were also people who putt their precepts into practice, activists in various spheres. Given Izuitsu's definition of mystics, far from being surprising, it seems almost inevitable that Dante, Bernard. Goethe, Humboldt, Clan-del and the other religious leaders, artists and scholars whom Izutsu admired were all, on the other hand, also outstanding statesmen.
There is no evidence that these two contemporaries, who were so close in what might be called their commonality of interests, read each other's works. It is inconceivable that Moroi was unaware of Arabia .shisöshi (1941; History of Arabic thought) and Arabia tetsugaku (1948; Arabic philosophy), the first studies of Islamic thought by a Japanese writer, Izutsu's translation of the Koran was published in three volumes between 1957 and 1958; it is unlikely that Yoshinori Moroi took no notice of the first full-scale Japanese translation of that work from the original Arabic. Izutsu had never heard of Moral, however, Yoshitsugu Sawai confirmed this fact with izutsu himself. Sawai is a scholar of Indian philosophy of whom Izutsu thought highly; not only is he a member of the same faith as Moroi, he also inherited Moral's scholastic mantle in Tenri-kvo theological studies.
If they had known one another, it is impossible to state for certain that they would have seen eve to eye The similarities and differences between them are clear simply from reading their works. But had they known of each other's existence, there is no doubt they would not have been able to ignore one another. Both excelled in their fluent use of dozens of languages, and yet even as they pursued studies based on their reading of the classics, they were close as well in their contemporaneity, never losing sight of modern thought. For both. philosophy was not the study of the past; it was nothing less than a direct and
CHAP IER FOUR
A CONTEMPORARY AND THE BIOGRAPHY OF THE PROPHET
of the development of religious mysticism: A religious-studies perspective centering on Semitic monotheism), was published five years after his death by the Tend Univity publishing department;4 what might be called his unfinished magnum opus, Shukyoteki shutaisci no ronri (,99,; The logic of religious identity), was revised by Yoshitsugu Sawai (1951— ) and other members of a younger generation of scholars and published thirty years after his death.' If he is remembered as a scholar, Yoshinori Moroi, the religious philosopher, the original thinker, is forgotten today. He was born on 30 March 1915; 'Ibshihiko Izutsu was born Oil 4 May the year before. They were, it is fair to say, contemporaries.
I shall never forget the day when, quite by accident, I spotted a copy of Moroi's study of the development of religious mysticism in a second-hand bookstore; I had never even heard of Moroi's name before. In this octavo volurne nearly i,000 pages long, were systematically drawn up themes that Thshihiko Izutsu had, or might well have, dealt with. Let me cite a few examples from the table of contents.
Part i:The basic elements of religious mysticism
Part : The development of mysticism in early Islam and the circumstances surrounding it
Chapter i: The blossoming and coming to fruition of Islamic mysticism with al-Hallaii as its turning point
Chapter 2: The unique experiences and ideas in IIallj mysticism
Chapter : The question of the Prophet Muhammad's mystical experience
Chapter : The transccndentalizing of Muhammad's
ur-experience in early Islam and its significance
Part 4: The development of mysticism in primitive Christianity and our infonnation about it
Chapter i: The distinctive confessions of the Apostle Paul as precedents for mysticism in Christianit and their main points
Chapter z: Research into the records of mystical experiences at the time of Paul's conversion
Chapter;: The semantic structure of the mystical experience in Paul's conversion
White clearly revealing their own distinctive characteristics, the works of these two men complement each other, almost as though there had been a profound connection between them. Shamanism, mysticism, I-Iallaj, Muhammad, the Koran, Paul-there is not a single one of these topics in which Izutsu did not show enormous interest. Paul is no exception. It had been Izutsu's plan for the sequel to Shinpi tetsugaku (19; Philosophy of mysticism), the "Hebrew part," to end with a study of Paul.
In his study of the development of religious mysticism, Moroi deals first with the differences between shamanism and what he calls "religious mysticism." In other words, it is a study of the subject in mystical thought; it deals with the question of who is the true protagonist of the mystical experience. For Moroi, mysticism is not a concept that corresponds to a specific ideology; it is a word that denotes an existential attitude, a way of life. Next, he moves on to llallaj, the medieval Islamic mystic whom Louis Massignon brought back to life in the modem world. We saw earlier how Massignon's attitude toward scholarship had had a decisive influence on lzut.su. Ilallaj, who fully lived the via mystica, one day began to say that the one speaking through his mouth was not himself but Cod, and ultimately went so far as to declare, "Anal I-Iaqq"— I am the Truth/God. Muhammad had said the same thing.. Moroi says, and the record of that experience is the Koran. In the descent of the divine word—in other words, in the spirituality of 1-Iallaj in the grips of a revelation —Moroi saw a revival of Muhammad. IIallaj did not revive the spirituality of Muhammad by studying the Koran: he brought it about through his own experience. It was, in fact, an astonishing thing. Moroi writes, but therein lay Uallaj's tragedy. By IIallj's time, there was no longer anyone who could call to mind Muhammad's vivid experience of divine revelation. As a result. IlalIajj was branded a blasphemer and ended his life on the scaffold.
allaj, Muhammad's experiences of revelation, the events leading up to the Koraii—Moroi recounts them all as though going backward in time. He turns the clock back even further and goes on to discuss the pre-Islamic period and the mysticism of Paul. He would later seek out even older voices, although not in the work on the development of religious mysticism, and write about the Jewish prophets. The fact
CHAER FOUR
A CONTEMPORARY AND THE BIOCRAPIIY OF THE PROPHET
of the development of religious mysticism: A religious-studies perspective centering on Semitic monotheism), was published five years after his death by the Tenri Unive&tv publishing department;4 what might be called his unfinished magnum opus, Shukyöteki shutaisei no ronri (1991; The logic of religious identity), was revised by Yoshitsugu Sawai (1951- ) and other members of a younger generation of scholars and published thirty years after his death.5 If he is remembered as a scholar, Yoshinori Moroi, the religious philosopher, the original thinker, is forgotten today. He was born on 30 March 1915; lbshihiko Izutsu was born Oil 4 May the year before. They were, it is fair to say, contemporaries.
I shall never forget the day when, quite by accident, I spotted a copy of Moroi's study of the development of religious mysticism in a second-hand bookstore; I had never even heard of Moroi's name before. In this octavo volume., nearly i,000 pages long, were systematically drawn up themes that Thshihiko Izutsu had, or might well have, dealt with. Let me cite a few examples from the table of contents.
Part i: The basic elements of religious mysticism
Part;: The development of mysticism in early Islam and the circumstances surrounding it
Chapter i: The blossoming and coming to fruition of Islamic mysticism with al-lIallaj as its turning point
Chapter 2: The unique experiences and ideas in llallaj mysticism
Chapter;: The question of the Prophet Mul,)ammad's mystical experience
Chapter : The transcendental izing of Mulammad's
ui-experience in early lsthni and its significance
Part ..j,: The development of mysticism in primitive Christianity and our information about it
Chapter i: The distinctive confessions of the Apostle Paul as precedents for mysticism in Christianity and their main points
Chapter : Research into the records of mystical experiences at the time of Paul's conversion
Chapter : The semantic structure of the mystical experience in Paul's conversion
While clearly revealing their own distinctive characteristics, the works of these two men complement each other, almost as though there had been a profound connection between them. Shamanism, mysticism, lIalthj, Muhammad, the Koran, Paul—there is not a single one of these topics in which Izutsu did not show enormous interest. Paul is no exception. It had been Izutsu's plan for the sequel to Shin p1 tetsugaku (1949; Philosophy of mysticism), the "Hebrew part," to end with a study of Paul.
In his study of the development of religious mysticism, Moroi deals first with the differences between shamanism and what he calls "religious mysticism." In other words, it is a study of the subject in mystical thought; it deals with the question of who is the true protagonist of the mystical experience. For Moroi, mysticism is not a concept that corresponds to a specific ideology; it is a word that denotes an existential attitude, a way of life. Next, he moves on to I-Iallj, the medieval Islamic mystic whom Louis Massignon brought back to life in the modern world. We saw earlier how Massignon's attitude toward scholarship had had a decisive influence on Izutsu. I'lahlj, who fully lived the via nn'stica, one day began to say that the one speaking through his mouth was not himself but God, and ultimately went so far as to declare, "Ana'I 1laqq"—1 am the Truth/God. Mul,iammad had said the same thing&. Moroi says. and the record of that experience is the Koran. In the descent of the divine word—in other words, in the spirituality of lIaIlj in the grips of a revelation -Moroi saw a revival of Mubam-mad. 1lalläj did not revive the spirituality of Muhammad by studying the Koran; he brought it about through his own experience. It was, in fact, an astonishing thing, Moroi writes, but therein lay IIallj's tragedy By 11allj's time, there was no longer anyone who could call to mind Mulammad's vivid experience of divine revelation. As a result. 1Ialljj was branded a blasphemer and ended his life on the scaffold.
Irlallaj, Muhammad's experiences of revelation, the events leading Uj) to the Koran—Moroi recounts them all as though going backward in time. He turns tIme clock back even further and goes on to discuss the pre-Islamic period and the mysticism of Paul. 1k would later seek out even older voices, although not in the work on the development of religious mysticism, and write about the Jewish prophets. The fact
CHAPTER FOUR
A CONTEMPORARY ANt) THE RIOGRAPHYOF THE PROPFIM
Because such a task resembles building a temple, it was not something that could be completed by Moroi alone. But the core concepts for such a project are already evident in his "Tenri-kvö shingaku joshO" (Introduction to Ten ri-kvö theology) and "Ten ri-kvo kvogigaku shiron" (A preliminary essay on Tcnri-kyO dogmatic theology).' Alluding to Thomas Aquinas, Yoshinori Moroi says that, while theology had certainly developed tinder Christianity. Christians have no monopoly on it. Theology "is not the useless theorizing of people with too much time on their hands, nor is it an idle response to vain and empty speculations. People inside the faith are naturally spurred on to take this step by the immediate and urgent realities of life pressing in on thern." Theology-is
heologyis not an intellectual attempt to understand God. The soul desires it. It is nothing less, he says, than an act of faith on which one must stake one's whole life.
A distinction between theology and philosophy can be made on conceptual grounds, since theology seeks its origins in revelation and deals with the Absolute whereas philosophy does not presuppose that the Absolute exists. And yet what really exists is a blending of the two. as in the case of Thomism, where theology and philosophy are inextricably intethvined. That is the reason why Islamic philosophers always praise Allah before they begin to speak. "Greek philosophy is a pure and unalloyed monotheism in religious term,s. But, in fact, when it ceases to he a religion, ills nothing more than philosophy. It is philosophy, but turn it the other way around in religious terms, and it is immediately an absolute monotheism."3 Izutsu's words in "Shinpishugi no crosutcki keitai: Sei Bertinni-ron" (195!; The mysticism of St Bernard) certainly are consonant with the historical facts. Proclus, who followed in Plotinus' footsteps. wrote Platonic Theology.
The writings of Christians like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Muslims like Avicenna (lbn STnã), Averroes (lbn Rushd) and lhn 'Arabi, Jews like Cabirol and Maimonides, and Buddhists like Ngrjuna and Mvaghoa. are revered as classic texts in their respective religious circles, but their readers are not limited to believers nor do those who study them feel under pressure to convert to the faith. They are the legacy of the human race, capable of being read as philosophy by everyone—as Thshihiko Izutsu, in fact, did. The same can also be said about sacred texts. If nonbelievers read them and are unable to catch a glimpse of the truth, such works do not deserve to he called sacred texts. Indeed, isn't it precisely for the salvation of those who do not yet believe that an religion worthy of its name exists? There is no need to go all the way back to Paul to see that Christianity has been sustained by its converts: Before turning to Christianity, Augustine renounced Manichaeism, Francis of Assisi a life of debauchery. Claude! materialism. Jacques Maritain modern rationalism. In his youth, the rnht Buddhist saint, Milarepa, had killed people.
The achievements of Yoshinori Moroi are not limited to Tenri-kvology. As a historian of religions, he included in his purview not only the world religions but even shamanism, while, in philosophy. his range extended from Greece. of course, and ancient India to modern thought. He was a first-rate religious philosopher who could hold forth on these suhects with a personal passion. The topics to which he devoted most of his intellectual energies were the religious act of "faith," and mysticism as the apogee of the religious experience. But lie was also, one realizes when reading the tributes written after his death, someone who thoroughly put his beliefs into practice as an educator, preacher and administrator. This fact must not be overlooked. Instead of simply adding another essay to his résumé, he preferred to give his ideas concrete expression, even if it meant that those ideas would be left only partially complete.
The reason we have forgotten Moroi today is that he died prematurely. Although he attracted attention in religious studies circles through the numerous works he published and through his election at age thirty-six as a director of the Japanese Association for Religious Studies, he succumbed to illness and at forty-six made his departure to the other world. The day before he died, he received his Doctor of Literature degree from the University of Tokyo, seven and a half years after he had submitted his dissertation. Apart from the books brought out during his lifetime by the Tcnri-k publishing department, as a historian of religion he left this world behind without knowing what would become of his remaining works in the history of religion. His doctoral dissertation, Shaky shin pishugi hassei no kenLyu: toku ni Se,nu-kei chOetsushinLyô o chUshin to sun, shukyogakuteki kösatsu 0966; A•stuclv
CHAPTER THR1
after it. Yokeniura's opinion of Dostoevsky was inherited from Belinsky. Although Yokennirà's study of Dostoevsky seems to be discussing this writer, it was, in fact, a practical, pragmatic extension of the literature that Belinskv regarded as ideal. Yokemura's views cited below reveal his own attitude toward revolution rather than that of Dostoevsky.
Although Dostoevsky saw these revolutionary, democratic movements of the sixties and seventies with his own eyes, he did not proceed in the direction of the people. Because he was only thinking about the suffering in his own head, because he tried to solve everything solip-
•sisticallv, he was unable to find any real way out. In the forties, at least half of him was on the side of the revolution, but from the sixties on, one could say he had lost faith in revolution. . . . On the one hand, to cease believing in the revolution, on the other, to maintain the ideals of equality and harmony—that is the contradiction.""
As can be understood from the criticism implied in the words "to cease believing in the revolution." for Yokemura the revolution was something "to believe in," it was a "faith" worth dedicating himself to. When Izutsu was discussing the "religiosity" of Russian communism in Roshiciteki ningen, it is hard to imagine he didn't have Yokenitira in mind. It is not the dogma of communism that was religious. What was "religious" was the instinctive idea that the masses would transcend the individual and seek to bring about truth, justice and love in their own communities and in the world. As Izutsu says, "In Russia, 'God' is not necessarily limited to the Cod of the Bible."8°
CHAPTER FOUR
A Contemporary and the
Biography of the Prophet
Religious Philosopher Yoshinori Moroi
THE ROLE THAT 'l'enri-kyo and Tenri University played in postwar Japanese studies of Islni has not, I believe, been much discussed before now. Worth noting first is its library acquisitions policy and then the number of distinguished scholars the university has produced. The Islam-related materials amassed by ShUmei Okawa at the East Asian Economic Research Bureau were confiscated by the US Army after the war, and their whereabouts are now unknown. By contrast, the Tenri Central Library collected important works related to lsh;n in the postwar period. The person who strongly urged the second Shinbashira, Shôzen Nakayama (190—I967), to do so was Yoshinori Moroi (19151961). Nakayama had the utmost confidence in Moroi. who was not only a Tenri-kyo theologian but also held important leadership positions as a professor at Tenri University and in organizations related to 'len rikyology.
rleIirjkY(,logy the theology of Tenri-46, the Religion of the Divine Wisdom, begins with Yoshinori Moroi. For this monotheistic new religion, which, like lslni itself, traces its origins to divine revelations imparted to its founder, Miki Nakayama (3798-1887), Moroi attempted to construct both a theology and a dogmatic theology that would rival those of the Semitic world religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islm.
