# Thoroughness of philosophy and return to religion in Tanabe Hajime

## TL;DR

This paper explores how Japanese philosopher Tanabe Hajime integrated religion, philosophy, and science, especially through his vision of a new world religion rooted in Platonism and Christian-Buddhist synthesis.

## Contribution

The paper highlights Tanabe's unique synthesis of Platonism and religious thought to propose a new world religion bridging Eastern and Western traditions.

## Key findings

- Tanabe's theory of religion is deeply connected to Platonism and his dialectics of absolute mediation.
- He envisioned a world religion through the fusion of Christianity and 'Nembutsu-Zen', reflecting his Christocentric yet philosophically thorough approach.
- Tanabe's work demonstrates a creative interpretation of Western philosophy to integrate Eastern and Western religious ideas.

## Abstract

Japanese philosopher Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962) not only discussed religion in ways that were rooted in the fundamental claims of his writings, such as Shinran in
Philosophy as Metanoetics (1946), but he also made proposals on religion, as in
Demonstration of Christianity (1948), where he advocated for the need for a “second religious reformation.” For Tanabe, philosophy and religion (along with science) are fused in a specific way, and it is possible to find a vision of religion to be aimed for that is worth considering as a theory of religion among Japanese philosophers. To examine the theory of religion in Tanabe, this study focuses on the work,
Demonstration of Christianity, and other works from the perspective of religious studies. In
Demonstration of Christianity, the concept of absolute religion toward the second religious reformation is envisioned based on Tanabe’s dialectics of the absolute mediation, and a discussion on his world religion can be found, although it is limited to Christianity and some Buddhist sects. Reflecting his absolute dialectic, Tanabe says that this world religion was established through the absolute mediation of Christianity with “
Nembutsu-Zen” (the unification of Pure Land Buddhism and Zen Buddhism). One cannot deny the impression of Christocentrism in these discussions, but they are in fact the result of Tanabe’s thoroughness in philosophy. What can be drawn from these discussions is that Tanabe's theory of religion is strongly connected to Platonism, which he considered the root of his dialectics. For example, by the third article in
Existence, Love, and Practice(1947), “Self-Transcendence in Platonism and Faith in Gospel.” Tanabe’s argument reveals the characteristics of conceiving a new religion that combines Eastern and Western ideas, philosophy, and religion through a creative interpretation of Platonism, the source of Western thought where philosophy and religion are inseparably linked.