XII. Japan’s Hatano-Resurrection Is From “Nothingness”

Even in Japan, in the Far East, an echo of dissent from the traditional concept of life and death was heard from the noted Japanese Christian scholar SEIICHI HATANO, ^{102102) SEIICHI HATANO (1877-1950), Presbyterian, Japanese philosopher and theologian, was trained at the University of Tokyo. Because of his recognized scholarship he was made the first professor of the Christian religion in a state University of Japan His last post was as president of the Tamagawa University. Among other works he was author of Philosophy of Religion (“Shukyo Tetsugaku”), and Time and Eternity (“Toki to Eien”). (Photo on page 1018.)} late professor of Christianity at the University of Kyoto. He too is on record as contrasting the customary Innate Immortality theory of both East and West with the Biblically Christian doctrine of resurrection as the beginning of our immortality. Dr. Carl Michalson, in his Japanese Contributions to Christian Theology (1960), quotes Professor Hatano as saying:CFF2 1028.7

“‘In Buddhism and in Western philosophies of immortality, life after death is understood at a purely cultural level. There, life after death is regarded as a continuation of this life, a condition of interminable successiveness, hence viewed as something painful, in the nature of punishment. The Christian doctrine of life after death, by contrast, is a doctrine of resurrection. In resurrection, man regains a life that has been lost. He comes into being from nothingness.’” ^{103103) Carl Michalson, Japanese Contributions to Christian Theology (1960), p. 123, quoting Seiichi Hatano, Time and Eternity (“Toki to Eien,” 1949), p. 214. Dr. Michalson, while in Japan as visiting lecturer on theology at the Aoyama Gakuin (University), made a special study of Japanese theologians and their fundamental contributions.}CFF2 1029.1

1. DEATH IS COMPLETE “DESTRUCTION OF LIFE.”

As to death, Hatano asserts that death is not continuance in life, but “destruction of life,” from which must come resurrection:
“Death for a Christian does not mean a shifting from one mode of being to another but the very destruction of life, the drifting of being into nonbeing. ‘All the thinkers of Christianity have been trying to evade this notion of death as the complete destruction of life. Where they succeed, the notion of resurrection means next to nothing.’ ^{104104 Ibid.}CFF2 1029.2

Resurrection, then, is from “nonbeing” into life. Otherwise resurrection is meaningless. The implication is obvious.CFF2 1029.3