Religious Pluralism and a Study on Daisaku Ikeda’s Thoughts on Interreligious Dialogue

Abstract

Sōka-gakkai (also known as Soka Gakkai International or SGI) is a new religious movement that originated in Japan in 1930. For more than a half century, the religion was led by its president Daisaku Ikeda, who played a significant role in its growth from 1960 until his death in 2023. Although SGI is one of the largest new religions in the world—it claims to have over 12 million members in 192 countries—there has to date been very limited scholarly attention paid to the religion and Ikeda’s religious thoughts. The latter is particularly important given the fact that Ikeda has written extensively on the applicability and implications of the doctrines of the SGI in many global issues of the day, including peace, education, environment, and interreligious dialogue. Among a wide variety of issues which can be examined, the paper focuses on the following question: What are Ikeda’s religious thoughts, particularly his stance on religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue? In view of this question, this paper examines how his religious ideas are not immersed in any specific religion, but emphasizes the importance of pursuing interreligious dialogue while acknowledging other religions and cultural traditions. This paper also critically assesses whether Ikeda’s call for interfaith dialogue and collaborations with various religious groups is indeed taking place in the SGI’s commitment to fostering a culture of peace and understanding. It is hoped that the examination of Ikeda’s stance on religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue indirectly allows for the exploration of a religion that is largely unknown and misunderstood.

1. Introduction

Postmodernism today rejects meta-discourses that converge on universality in philosophy, history, society, art and religion, and instead pursues micro-discourses that focuses on deconstructionism. This trend is also present in religious pluralism, which breathes in the same context as the flow of postmodernism. Religious pluralism, a peripheral micro-discourse that contradicts the theological position of meta-discourse, can also be examined through the religious thought of Daisaku Ikeda, the former leader of a non-theistic Buddhist new religion, namely the Soka Gakkai (SG) (see Fisker-Nielsen 2018; Barone 2007; Dawson 2001; Métraux 2013), reportedly the largest new religious movement in Japan and Korea.1 This is because his religious thought is not immersed in a specific religion, but seeks world peace through interreligious dialogue while acknowledging other religions and cultural traditions. Ikeda explored various attempts at world peace by having meetings with the leaders of former communist countries and democratic countries as well as with world-renowned scholars and religious figures beyond his own “religious walls”. From a religious perspective, his past activities and writings offer a glimpse into the possibilities of exploring interreligious dialogue or religious pluralism. Ikeda’s religious thought suggests that there are points of contact with the current postmodernist trend.

Soka Gakkai, one of the representative foreign new religions in Korea, if not the most representative, has become global in scale and influence.2 The attempt to explore the interreligious dialogue position of Christian theology through Ikeda’s religious thought also allows for an examination of the religious foundation of Soka Gakkai. The religious flexibility of Soka Gakkai, which is revealed through the contact point of interreligious dialogue, can also become a point where its religious extension can be expanded to the Western world.3 According to Geoffrey Parrinder, a comparative religion scholar, the resistance incident in which Luther challenged Christianity in the 16th century is defined as the First Reformation, the incident in which science contested Christian consciousness in the 19th century is defined as the Second Reformation, and the dialogue between Christianity and Eastern religions is defined as the Third Reformation (Knitter [1985] 1986, p. 44). In this light, Ikeda’s religious attitude toward other religions, especially his religious scope regarding religious pluralism and religious dialogue, which belongs to Eastern religions, can be said to be a movement belonging to the Third Reformation.

The discussion of religious pluralism can also be the history that forms the “third stage” of Christianity, as Karl Rahner (1979) argues. This is because Rahner (1979) sees the first stage as the Jewish form found in the early days of the New Testament, the second stage as the form transformed into Greco-Roman and Western European culture, and the third stage as the form in which Christianity incarnates itself in world cultures and engages in dialogue with Islam and Eastern religions. If Rahner’s stage theory is replaced by dialectical logic, the first stage, Jewish Christianity in its Jewish form, can be defined as a thesis, the second stage, Greco-Roman Christianity, as an antithesis, and the third stage, pluralistic Christianity synthesized with other cultures and religions, as a synthesis. However, this synthesis becomes a thesis again, and a modified form of the antithesis emerges, and this cycle of synthesis emerging from here is highly likely to repeat itself (Smart 2000, p. 118). Therefore, it is not desirable to evaluate that “religious pluralistic Christianity is qualitatively superior to the previous fundamentalist and evangelical Christian ideology, for it is important for this type of Christianity to have a relativistic attitude that does not define one as better than the other” (Knitter [1985] 1986, p. 50). Religious pluralism is thus an attitude that excludes claims that all human achievements are absolute; that is, religious pluralism rejects the idea that there is a one-and-only unchanging truth.4 In that respect, this study aims to explore the religious pluralism position of Ikeda by analyzing his religious attitude that showed a wide range of relativistic attitudes in religion. It is worth noting that this paper is not a normative theological study on Ikedaivistic attitudes in religion and does not define a phenomenological research method of religion5 that observes his religious attitude. However, the study has limitations because it seeks to examine the religious pluralistic tendencies of a religious leader of the new non-theistic Buddhist religion, centred on the research type derived from the background of Western Christianity. This methodology contains the contradiction of research by the outsider, Christianity, which simplifies or generalizes the logic of the insider, Soka Gakkai.

It should also be noted that there has not been any research performed on Ikeda’s thoughts on interreligious dialogue. Only among his book publications, traces of interreligious dialogue can be indirectly inferred from the conversations Ikeda had with Arnold Toynbee, as in Dialogues for the 21st Century I (Ikeda and Toynbee 2008a), Dialogues for the 21st Century II (Ikeda and Toynbee 2008b), and a collection of discourses between Ikeda and Harvey Cox, namely Talking about Peace and Religion in the 21st Century (Ikeda and Cox 2019). This paper can also be said to be filling a gap in academic discourse in that it presents a new model of religious pluralism from a post-Western perspective, breaking away from the Western-centric model of interreligious dialogue. Existing interreligious dialogues are mostly conducted by scholars from Europe and America, except for Raimundo Panikkar, a religious pluralism theologian of the Global South. In his book The Intrareligious Dialogue (Panikkar 1978), Panikkar argued for totality (totum) through a new concept called the “the anthropocosmic vision”. This breaks away from the comparative method of general religious historians to determine truth or superiority through mutual comparison (con), and pursues learning from the encounter between religious traditions by using the “imparative method”, that is, the method of “not comparing (parare)” and “not (in)” (Han 2000, pp. 100–10). Panikkar can be considered a Global South theologian who can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Western scholars who have led the academic discourse on existing interreligious dialogue, such as John Hick, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Karl Rahner, Leonard Swidler, Schubert Ogden, Paul Knitter, George Lindbeck, John Cobb, and Paul Knitter. However, as insinuated above, this paper can be evaluated as a new contribution to this field in that it re-examines the model of interreligious dialogue from a post-Western perspective based on the religious and cultural traditions of Asia that experienced colonialism, such as that of Daisaku Ikeda. In this way, this paper aims to critically reflect on the theology centred on Europe that carried out imperialism in the past.

2. Contents of Religious Pluralism

2.1. History of Religious Pluralism

Today is the era of religious pluralism (Berger 1967, p. 135). In the Middle Ages, Europeans were Roman Catholics, Arabs were Muslims, and people of the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910), the last dynasty of Korea, were adherents of Confucianism.6 This correlation between religion and time and space has always been a religious constant, like grammar. John Hick expressed what amounts to a “religious environmental determinism”, arguing that people born in India become Hindus, people born in Europe become Christians, and people born in Arab countries become Muslims. However, today we live in a world where religious constants no longer hold true; that is, we live in a society of religious pluralism in which “various religious groups within a society are tolerated by the state and compete freely with one another” (J. S. Kim 2005, p. 159). In fact, religious pluralism “presupposes a situation where heterogeneous religious groups coexist in a competitive situation” (J. S. Kim 2005, p. 159). However, there are two caveats here. First, pluralism describes the position on the religious phenomenon, that is, the social attitude that pursues religious diversity, so the term is an ideology that already contains value judgments. On the other hand, plurality refers to the empirical reality itself and has a value-neutral characteristic that describes the phenomenon of multiple religions coexisting. Pluralization describes the socialization process that aims for peaceful coexistence, and like plurality, it can be said to be value-neutral (Berger and Zijderveld [2009] 2010, pp. 20–21). Second, the term “pluralism” means discussing the many based on the premise of the one that is most important, and the fact that it is accompanied by the suffix “ism”, which is a “principle” or “claim”, can be said to imply “imperialistic” overtones in the term itself. However, despite the shortcomings of the term, it is believed that it would be helpful for the discussion to explore the historical process centred on the term “religious pluralism”, as the term is mainly used today instead of “religious plurality” and “religious pluralization”.

But it is also worth noting that most religious pluralisms, whether they are “pluralism centered on common ground” that converges with theocentrism and salvation centrism, or “pluralism centered on difference” that emphasizes cultural–linguistic or process-relational approaches, assume the ultimate goal of encounter between religious traditions. They aim for mutual enrichment, mutual maturity, and mutual transformation among religions. However, this ultimate goal can result in “interventionism” toward each other’s religions. As we all know, each religion arose from different historical backgrounds, such as differences in climate, environment, race, and culture. However, religious pluralism was formed through the unique religious situation of the Western mono-religious tradition and the Enlightenment and Romanticism. However, if religious pluralism overlooks these “differences” and unilaterally claims mutual enrichment, maturity, and ultimately transformation for all religions, including Eastern religions, it can become another imposition or excessive interference. This could be said to be a variant of Western Christian fascism disguised as pluralism.

If history was to be divided into periods, it can be broadly divided into ancient times, medieval times, modern times, and contemporary times. Ancient times were approximately 1000 years from 500 BCE to 476 CE, coinciding with the fall of the Western Roman Empire; the Middle Ages were approximately 1000 years from 476 to 1453, marked by the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire; the modern times were from the 16th century to the mid-19th century, with the 16th to 17th centuries classified as the early modern times, while the 18th to 19th centuries are seen as the late modern times. Finally, the period from the mid-19th century to the present is the contemporary era. Therefore, excluding prehistoric times, the history of humankind is roughly divided into 1000 years of ancient times, 1000 years of medieval times, 350 years of modern times, and 150 years of contemporary times. Religious pluralism is a theological trend that emerged as a stream of religious theology in the West, especially in the mid-20th century. Theology of religions or more specifically “Christian theology of religions” can be said to be a study on how to establish the self-identity of Christianity and its relationship with others in a multi-religious situation where many religions coexist (Chung 2017, p. 26). In Korea, theology of religions is divided into Western theology of religions and Korean theology of religions, with exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism originating from the former, and theology of indigenization originating from the latter.7

Religious pluralism, a branch of religious theology, has its origins in the early days of Christianity in the 1st century CE. Early Christianity, from the 1st to 3rd centuries CE, coexisted with other religions and established its own identity. At that time, the way Christianity established its identity was externally through apologetics, which was consistent with opposition, resistance, and defence against other religions, and internally through patristics—the study of the early Christian writers known as Church Fathers—which established theology. The characteristic of Christianity at this time can be said to be “Christianity against gentile religions”. After that, Christianity was officially recognized and became the state religion of the Roman Empire in 313 CE and 380 CE, respectively, transforming from a “persecuted religion” to a “reigning religion”.

Christianity, which had been allied with political power since the 4th century, reigned as the only religion that dominated all of Europe until the 15th century, assuming the position of “Christianity only”. Then, through the geographical discoveries that began in the 15th century and the scientific revolution in the 16th century, Christianity experienced other lands, other people, other cultures, and other religions. At this time, Christianity took a hostile attitude toward religions of unfamiliar others, branding them as “wrong religions” and forcing others to convert to Christianity, the “right religion”. The characteristic of Christianity in the early modern period, i.e., the 16th and 17th centuries, can be said to be “Christianity as the One and Only True Religion”, and this period can thus be called the era of “exclusivism”.

Unlike the early modern period of the 16th and 17th centuries, in the late modern period of the 18th and 19th centuries, the ideology of enlightenment became an important sociocultural force, leading to a demand for a new interpretation of the “errors” of other religions. At this time, Christianity, unlike the proselytizing and exclusive nature of the early modern period, reorganized its attitude toward other religions in a hierarchical manner in which Christianity is the highest and superior religion while other religions are religions of lower level or rank. Indeed, at this time, religions of others are not defined as “wrong religions” but as “different religions” of lower rank or status compared to Christianity. In this way, Christianity in the 18th and 19th centuries can be characterized as “Christianity as the Best and Highest Religion” and this period can be called the era of “inclusivism”.

In the 20th century, Christianity entered a period of individualization in which individuals judged, chose, and decided everything due to the aftermath of the scientific revolution in the 16th century and the enlightenment in the 18th century. At this time, Christianity lost its status as a superior religion and became “Christianity as a religion among many religions”. In this situation where various religions coexisted, pluralism emerged as a position that deals with the kind of relationship Christianity should have with other religions (see Chung 2017, pp. 13–34).

Therefore, it can be said that exclusivism was actively developed in the 16th and 17th centuries, inclusivism in the 18th and 19th centuries, and pluralism in the 20th century. However, it is not desirable to regard the earlier types of interreligious relationships as regressive and later types as advanced, that is, inclusivism as being superior to exclusivism, and pluralism as being more advanced than both exclusivism and inclusivism (Chung 2017, pp. 57–58). These types are not superior or inferior in relative terms, as they are theological products of the times according to the religious environment and trends of the time.

2.2. Types of Religious Pluralism

The first signal of interreligious dialogue in the West came from “the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions” (Nostra Aetate, from Latin, meaning “In our time”), which was promulgated through the Vatican II, an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, in 1965. However, this declaration meant nothing more or less than including religions from cultures outside the Christian areas into the Christian sphere. This corresponds to inclusivism according to Alan Race’s classification of types of dialogue between religious traditions. Race (1982) presents three types of interreligious dialogue, namely exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism.8 The first is exclusivism. Exclusivism means to “drive out” (ex = “out of”) and “close the door”. Representative scholars of this type include Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, and Hendrick Kraemer, and later, Lesslie Newbigin, who criticized the early discussion of exclusivism (Race 1982, p. 11). Barth assumes a qualitative difference between Christianity and other religions. According to Barth, Christianity is a revealed religion in which God reveals himself, and God’s self-revelation “downward” toward humans produces faith, while humans’ search “upward” for God produces religion. In other words, Christianity is God’s self-revelation, but other religious traditions are imperfect because they are human efforts to know God. Since revelation occurred once and for all through Jesus Christ, there is no revelation outside of Christianity. Therefore, Christianity is the true religion, while other religions are false religions. Since exclusivism holds that truth and salvation are found only in Christianity, the encounter between Christianity and other religions is for the conversion of each and every individual from other religions.

The second type of interreligious dialogue is inclusivism. Inclusivism means to “drive into and close the door”, and the representative scholars of this type are Rahner and Hans Küng. First, Rahner’s comprehensive theological position is based on Justin Martyr’s “logos spermatikos”. Based on this, he says that all human beings exist as “supernatural existence” that does not exist in a state of pure nature. Supernatural existence means that “our existence here and now is a ‘supernatural’ presence that goes beyond the natural state and exists far beyond the way we think of our existence”, which is an infinite existence that gives and receives love from finite beings while also giving and receiving love from infinite others, in other words, “quasi-formal causality” (Race 1982, p. 11). In this way, Rahner claims that God also exists in the doctrines and beliefs of other religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and indigenous religions. Accordingly, he presupposes a common ground between Christianity and other religious traditions, and calls it primeval revelation or anonymous faith. In doing so, he defines primeval revelation as a universal will for salvation on God’s part and an a priori orientation toward mystery on human’s side.

However, Rahner sees the presence of God’s love as permeating human nature and history, but it is because of Jesus Christ. By assuming that Jesus Christ is the basis of salvation and a healing soul that exists in the universe, that is, Jesus is the final basis of salvation, Rahner sees that the goal of creation is ultimately completed through Jesus, the final basis (Knitter [2002] 2007, p. 128; see Race 1982, p. 42). Therefore, for Rahner, the difference between religious traditions is not a qualitative difference but a difference in degree. The reason religious traditions differ from one another is because they reflect the same anonymous revelation and faith to different degrees. Christianity is the absolute religion in which anonymous revelation and religious ritual are most clearly articulated, conceptualized, and subjectivized among all existing religions, while other religious traditions are vague and have not been able to adequately conceptualize and subjectivize it.

Therefore, in inclusivism, the reason Christianity encounters other religions is to elevate the anonymous faiths of non-Christian religions to explicit faiths, in order to “Christianize” their own religions by making Jesus Christ the standard for making the anonymous Christians who operates within each religious tradition and community explicit. In short, Rahner’s theological position is to acknowledge the possibility of faith in other religions but exclude the possibility of salvation.

In contrast, Küng acknowledges the possibility of universal salvation in world religions. He distinguishes the salvation of the church as special and extraordinary, and the salvation of world religions as general and ordinary, thereby claiming that they are all the paths to salvation. However, Küng, who formed a theological opposition with Rahner due to differences in the possibility of salvation, agrees with the latter that the ultimate goal of other religions is “Jesus Christ” (Hick 1980, pp. 34–35). In summary, Rahner’s inclusivism is a type that recognizes the universality of faith that excludes salvation in other religions, while Küng’s inclusivism is a type that recognizes the universality of faith and the universality of salvation in other religions. Accordingly, in exclusivism, Christianity is defined as being different in “kind” from other religions, while in inclusivism, it is defined as being different in “degree”.9

The third type of interreligious dialogue is pluralism. Religious pluralism, which etymologically means that there are “plural” or “many” religions, means that there is not one absolute religion, but several religions coexist. However, this goes beyond simply saying that there are many religions and implies that all religions are “brothers” and “sisters”. The reason is that in order to solve the problem of suffering faced by humanity, all religions should reconcile and eliminate conflicts and hostility among religions. To this end, the claim that there is no one absolute or superior religion in this world but that all religions are equal and have the same value has emerged. In fact, religious pluralism owes its debt to cultural relativism, which was created based on the development of cultural anthropology and epistemological relativism, which developed in modern philosophy of science. These two relativisms reflect the position that all truth is limited by the situation in which it is located, that is, by time and space (Chang 2002, pp. 38–39). The truth of Christianity is also a product of the times that emerged within a spatiotemporal situation, so we should not insist on the claim that Christianity has unique characteristics that separate it from other religions.

Religious pluralism began to be discussed in earnest in the late 1970s by a group of scholars of religion. The two representative scholars are Wilfred Cantwell Smith and John Hick.10 As is well known, Hick is a representative figure who gave birth to religious pluralism as a theological topic and is often classified as a theocentric pluralist. He said that “all religions are merely phenomena in which the one truth, God, is expressed differently according to different cultural backgrounds”, and called such thinking with a theocentric attitude the Copernican shift in theology (Chang 2002, p. 41). In fact, Hick’s theocentric pluralism was influenced by Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s view of religion. Smith argues that all religions are not independent entities that have existed independently from the past, but are merely names given by humans to religious movements that arose in response to cultural circumstances and historical events. Humanity has only had religious beliefs that existed from the beginning and cultural traditions that were created by accumulating such beliefs over a long period of history. However, through the influence of the philosophy of the Enlightenment, Westerners who preferred ideological conceptualization and intellectual categorization labelled religious beliefs into an organization or doctrine, and such habits made it seem as if there were independent religious entities such as Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism, which eventually gave rise to religious discrimination and superiority. In other words, all religions are merely phenomena created by humans, and the idea that there is only one true religion in the world is an illusion, and the concept of religion as an independent entity is also a fiction that is merely a conceptual convenience created by humans. Therefore, the reason why all religions in the world appear different is because the cultural types of humans are different and the forms of thought based on them are different. In short, “all religions are not substantially distinct from each other, but rather that all religions are different cultural responses to the same religious reality” (Chang 2002, pp. 104–6).

Hick also expands Smith’s hypothesis to a discussion of religious pluralism based on the philosophical foundations of Immanuel Kant and Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein. First, Hick uses Kant’s relational analogy between noumenon as the thing in itself and phenomenon as the experience of it to explain the relationship between ultimate reality and religions that culturally express it. However, Hick regards Kant’s theory as an outdated philosophical speculation and introduces Wittgenstein’s principle of family resemblance to supplement it. Based on the assumption that although family members may have different appearances and personalities, all family members share the same genetic makeup, all religions appear different on the outside, but in essence, all religions share a common denominator (Chang 2002, pp. 106–7).

However, a group of scholars including Takeda Ryūsei criticize Hick’s theocentric pluralism or reality-centric pluralism, which presupposes an ultimate reality that pre-exists and underlies all religions.11 In particular, Takeda does not establish the ultimate “one” proposed by Hick as a premise for all religions, but insists that such “one” in each religious tradition is only the ultimate within each tradition, not the ultimate “one” in all religions. In doing so, he denies the possibility of viewing Yahweh, Brahman, Shiva, Tao, etc., as the same in Eastern and Western religious traditions, and emphasizes that each religious tradition of the East and the West was formed and developed individually and independently (Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture 2015, pp. 179–90). In short, if we convert this discussion into the statement of the scholar of religion Myung-won Seo, Hick’s theocentric pluralism that all religions are just different paths to the top of the same mountain is “monistic pluralism”, whereas Takeda’s logical pluralism that “there is not one mountain, but many mountains, and a single path (religion) to the top of a particular mountain can never lead to the top of another mountain” is “pluralistic pluralism” (Catholicnews jigeumyeogi 2012).

However, the systematic classification of the discussion on religious pluralism is notable in an analysis of Korean theologian In-cheol Han. He presents three types of religious pluralism. The first is “pluralism centered on common ground”, which is divided into theocentric pluralism and salvation-centred pluralism. The former includes Hick and Smith, Raimundo Panikkar, early Knitter, Schubert M. Ogden, and Frithjof Schuon. They assume the common ground as God or ultimate reality. The latter includes Harvey Cox, Aloysius Pieris, M.M. Thomas, and later Knitter, all of whom see the common ground as the “liberation” or “salvation”. The second is “pluralism centered on difference”, which is divided into cultural–linguistic approach and process-relational approach. The former is a group centred around George A. Lindbeck, and the latter is a group of scholars led by John B. Cobb. The third is “centerless pluralism”, which was introduced by the Japanese Zen Buddhist scholar Masao Abe. It is a form of pluralism based on the non-dualism of Zen Buddhism (Han 2000, p. 41ff).

In order to concretize the discussion, it is pertinent to focus on Knitter’s salvation-centred pluralism. Generally, Knitter’s work is divided into early Knitter and later Knitter. However, this classification method was mainly used in Knitter’s early research methodology and does not clearly reveal the aspect of his thought formed in his later years in relation to Buddhism. Accordingly, J. Kim (2020, pp. 92–120) has recently divided Knitter’s work into five stages, which correspond to the periods in which he built his view of God under the influence of Buddhist thought. The stages are as follows: (1) the replacement model stage (exclusivism); (2) the completion model stage (inclusivism); (3) the relational model stage (theocentric pluralism); (4) the salvation-centred stage (salvation-centred pluralism); and (5) the Buddhist Christian stage. The fourth stage of Knitter’s thought, namely the salvation-centred stage, is a stream of pluralism that combines religious theology and South American liberation theology. The reason why Knitter turned away from theocentric pluralism of the third stage, the relational model, is that, first, the god or reality presented as a common ground between religious traditions is biased towards theistic religions, especially Christianity, and is ultimately imperialistic Christianity, just like Rahner’s inclusivism. Second, since the assumption of god or reality as the common ground of religions itself involves metaphysical and doctrinal elements, such pluralism is bourgeois. After this criticism, Knitter gained insight that a “common goal” is more important than “existence” as the common ground of religion, and thus focused on salvation or liberation. It is noteworthy that the salvation or liberation that Knitter proposed as a common goal is the “preferential option for the poor and the non-human”, which is a religious “value” of liberation theology. The reason Knitter took this as a common goal is that it can prevent the ideologization of the rulers and the powerful from dominating the poor or the non-human; it can escape the bias of Christianity that takes God as the common ground, and the common goal that he presents secures clarity and specificity that can overcome the ambiguity and non-specificity of the common ground of religions presented so far. However, Knitter says that the new common goal is not an essential common condition, but merely a common hypothesis to open a channel of dialogue among religious traditions. Although Knitter also has the limitation of having to use the Christian term “salvation” within a specific cultural and religious framework of Christianity,12 it is significant in that it provides a common goal to all religions by making preferential choice for the poor and non-humans a common goal based on the hermeneutics of suspicion (Han 2000, pp. 135–44).

3. Ikeda’s Religious Pluralism

3.1. Ikeda’s Theism

Ikeda, in an invited lecture at Sofia University in Bulgaria, clarifies his position on the Eastern Orthodox Church, thereby expressing his view of theology. He assumes that Christianity itself, whether in the East or the West, is monotheistic, but he emphasizes the positive aspects of the Eastern Orthodox Church which, unlike the Western Church that significantly distances God and humans, sets the distance between God and humans very close. The reason the Western Church distanced the two, God and humans, is because the centralized pyramidal organization centred around the Pope reigned as the “agent of God”, thereby significantly increasing the distance between the sacred and the secular, and between the clerical and the temporal. The Eastern Orthodox Church, on the other hand, is understood to be less prone to “fetishization of institutions”, such as the emperor’s papacy, and there is thus no unnecessary interference between God and humans (Ikeda 2011, pp. 217–20). From this, we can see that Ikeda only acknowledges the difference between the Eastern and Western churches regarding the distance between God and humans, but agrees with the monotheistic understanding of the existence of God. Then, what is Ikeda’s attitude toward God? This can be inferred from his references to the poems of Tolstoy, who was excommunicated as a heretic by the Bulgarian and Russian Orthodox Churches, and Hristo Botev, the Bulgarian revolutionary poet. Tolstoy said, “The kingdom of God is within us. We can recognize God only within ourselves. If we do not find God within ourselves, we cannot find God anywhere” (Ikeda 2011, p. 221). Tolstoy’s view of God, which made the distance between God and humans zero, is clearly revealed through Botev’s poem.

Oh, my God of God, my righteous God!

It is not the God in heaven,

but the God within me.

The God in my heart and soul.

(Ikeda 2011, p. 221)

Through the “claims” of Tolstoy and Botev, who emphasized the thorough internalization of God, we can see that Ikeda rejects the dichotomous thinking that completely formalizes the gap between God and humans and aims for a non-dualistic view of God. Furthermore, Ikeda reduces this understanding of God to the concept of the “Great Self” in Mahayana Buddhism and likens it to the religious views of Jung and Emerson. Ikeda defines the “self” through the Buddhist tradition that one should not take refuge in others but in oneself (“I”) and the Dharma. According to Ikeda, the “I” here refers not to “the small self entangled in egoism, but to the great self, infinitely fused with the cosmic life that governs cause and effect infinitely in both time and space” (Ikeda and Toynbee 2008b, pp. 313–14).13 The Great Self is the Self14 that Jung claims is deeply embedded in the ego and is the dimension that Emerson called “the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal One” (Ikeda 2011, pp. 31–32). In this light, Ikeda’s view of God is understood to have a co-essential aspect in that it assumes Jung’s Great Self and Emerson’s eternal One. In short, Ikeda does not understand God as a personal being that transcends the phenomenal world and exists in another world as in theistic religions; rather, he assumes a common essence analogous to the internalized God, so it can be said that his view of God is that there is a “distinction” of God, not “separation” of God.

3.2. Aspects of the Common Essence School

When discussing Ikeda’s position on religious pluralism, the most noteworthy manuscripts are Dialogue for the 21st Century I (Ikeda and Toynbee 2008a) and Dialogue for the 21st Century II (Ikeda and Toynbee 2008b), both of which comprise his conversations with Arnold J. Toynbee. As is well known, Toynbee is a world-renowned historian, not a theologian. However, Toynbee’s monumental historical book, A Study of History, a 12-volume work, incorporates the theological or religious theme that religion is the centre of human life. The characteristics of the 26 civilizations he examined through world history revealed that “the power that enabled them to respond to political and moral challenges in the course of history was determined by the characteristics of the religion that gave them vitality” (Knitter [1985] 1986, p. 72). Toynbee asserts that Western civilization is currently in decline, that its salvation is a return to religion, and that humans cannot live without religion. According to Knitter ([1985] 1986, p. 72), it was Toynbee who “pursued the conviction that the dynamics of history cannot be understood without religious elements”. In An Historian’s Approach to Religion, Toynbee (1956) agreed with the words of the Roman statesman Symmachus that “the essence of such a great mystery cannot be reached by a single path alone”, criticizing the absolute exclusivity of Christianity and understanding the mission of all religions as mutual complementarity rather than competition (Byun 1996a, p. 281).

This understanding of religion by Toynbee is in line with religious pluralism in that it denies the existence of a single, absolute, superior religion, and recognizes the equality and equal value of all religions. In particular, Toynbee can be said to belong to the common essence school,15 because he believes that all individual religions have their own common essence, that is, a spiritual reality that energizes all religions, the so-called “consciousness of spiritual presence” (Knitter [1985] 1986, pp. 73–79). The common essence is the position that although all things appear to be different on the outside and seem to have no common properties, there is a universal property that exists in common among all things in terms of content, and thus recognizes the thorough identicalness or commonality of all religions. That is, “whether it is Buddhism, Confucianism or Christianity, in order for a religion to fall into the category of true religion, each religion must have certain common characteristics that it shares with other religions” (Chang 2002, p. 112). Toynbee went a step further and emphasized the importance of the common essence element in religion, saying that even the essence of learning and education is not in practical purposes, but in seeking spiritual communion with the spiritual reality behind the universe (Ikeda and Toynbee 2008a, p. 105). In this way, Toynbee’s view of religion corresponds to theocentric pluralism or realist pluralism that assumes the pre-existent One in all religions. Given that Ikeda viewed his conversation with Toynbee, who belongs to the common essence school, very positively, we can infer what Ikeda’s attitude toward other religions is.

In his conversation with Toynbee, Ikeda says that despite their differences in religious and cultural backgrounds, the two men have very little difference in their outlook on life and purpose, and their opinions largely agree. Toynbee was born and raised as a Christian in Europe, while Ikeda grew up as a Mahayana Buddhist in Asia. However, despite their differences in religious backgrounds, Ikeda says that he and Toynbee share the same view that religion is the source of human life, and that “one must offer oneself to all things in the universe and align the self with the ‘ultimate reality’”: “The eternal spiritual value for a human being is to enlarge his or her self so that his or her egoism becomes equal to the ‘ultimate reality.’ The self cannot be separated from the ultimate reality” (Ikeda and Toynbee 2008a, pp. 8–10).16 This position is consistent with Hick’s discussion of the three ways in which religious traditions respond to “the Real”. First, Hick refers to “the experience of God as a personal presence and revealed in the encounter in the I-Thou relationship”, which corresponds to the core of theistic religion (Hick 1980, pp. 92–93). Second, he refers to “natural mysticism or cosmic mysticism in which the entire world or universe is experienced as a manifestation or vessel of divine reality”, which corresponds to Confucianism, Taoism, and the Book of Changes in the East (Hick 1980, pp. 92–93). Third, he refers to Hinduism and Buddhism, “in which the experiencing self is temporarily absorbed into the divine reality and becomes one with the One” (Hick 1980, pp. 92–93). In this light, Ikeda’s religious attitude is understood to be in line with Hick’s realist pluralism.

However, it is noteworthy that Ikeda asserts that he and Toynbee both agree in thinking that the ultimate reality is not a personal God in human form (Ikeda and Toynbee 2008a, p. 9).17 Ikeda also rejects anthropomorphism or anthropopathism that reduces God to human form or will: “If the ‘ultimate reality’ is a being with will like a human, only those who have received its grace can contact God and receive revelation from God. And there is a risk that the subjective will of humans will not have much significance” (Ikeda and Toynbee 2008b, pp. 243–44). In this way, the “ultimate reality” is inherent in the universe and equally exists in all living beings, and through this, all humans can equally come into contact with and unite with the ultimate reality. Therefore, it can be said that although Ikeda’s religious attitude has elements of the common essence school that resonates with Toynbee’s religious thought, he also opposes reducing the ultimate reality to a personal level.

3.3. Aspects of Religious Liberationism

Ikeda shares the perspective of the common essence school that recognizes the ultimate reality, but emphasizes that there are many differences in the practical methods of contacting and uniting with the ultimate reality.

Even if the fundamental attitude of acknowledging the “ultimate reality” and the ideals regarding human life and behaviour that can be derived from it are the same for all religions, there are natural differences in the practical methods of how to contact and unite with the “ultimate reality” (Ikeda and Toynbee 2008b, p. 244).

Ikeda opens up the possibility of multidimensional interpretations of ultimate reality, saying, “Depending on how the ‘ultimate reality’ is understood, it is deeply related to the attitude toward living in a reality that reflects the ultimate reality” (Ikeda and Toynbee 2008b, p. 244), thereby raising the multidimensionality of various realistic approaches. If the ultimate reality is understood in various ways, such as God, salvation, and liberation, diverse religious approaches will arise accordingly. For example, if the ultimate reality is defined as God, imperialistic religiosity such as inclusivism (Karl Rahner) or monistic pluralism (John Hick) which insists that religions must centre around one God may arise even if religious diversity and cultural intersectionality are acknowledged. And if the ultimate reality is defined as salvation or liberation, it may appear as salvation-centred pluralism (Paul Knitter).

The fact that Ikeda opens up the possibility of a multidimensional interpretation of ultimate reality and raises the multidimensionality of various realistic approaches accordingly is proven not only explanatory but also empirically, as shown in the following. First, if it recognizes the ultimate reality as God and appears as an imperialistic character, this position is no different from intellectual fascism in which a certain group or individual monopolizes the truth. This can lead to dogmatism or hegemonic errors because pluralism can be reduced to normative or metaphysical ideologies (see Chung 2017, pp. 81–88). As Kenneth Surin has pointed out, this can lead to the “McDonaldization” of intellect. Just as McDonald’s hamburgers are distributed to all parts of the world, leading to the universal consumption of the American lifestyle, regional uniqueness is lost and regions become subordinated to the economic and cultural domination of a dominant country, namely the United States (J. Kim 2020, p. 321). If universality dominates the world, global ethics, and global conversation, the participants cannot help but be placed in an unequal power dynamic (J. Kim 2020, p. 321). Accordingly, as a reaction to this, the pluralism of Western Christianity broke down its unity through encounters with non-Western Christianity and non-Western non-Christian religions, and the second-generation interreligious dialogue emerged in the non-Western, non-Christian realm from the discourse of the first-generation interreligious dialogue that had been centred on the “West” and “Christianity”. The empirical examples of this are the religious pluralism of Raimundo Panikkar (see Chung 2017, pp. 31–34), who pioneered it by intersecting Christianity and Hinduism, and Ikeda, whose ideas are being discussed in this paper.

Second, if the ultimate God is defined as salvation or liberation, this discussion shares the characteristics of liberation theology or people’s theology. As is well known, liberation theology insists on preferential concern for the poor and the underprivileged. This is to apply the principle of participation and emphasize the priority of orthopraxis. As part of this, Ikeda proposed the establishment of “global governance” and “UN Asia-Pacific headquarters” that would allow for a pluralistic global governance system to be implemented through the agreement of multiple organizations, all in an effort to realize important practical power for human liberation. However, excessive emphasis on proper conduct while overlooking orthodoxy carries the risk of losing cooperation between religions and cultures. An example of this is the fact that liberation theologians like Juan Luis Segundo and Jon Sobrino were not open to the liberating and revolutionary potential of non-Christian religions (J. Kim 2020, p. 110). Liberation theology’s excessive social revolutionary nature and bias toward powerless people led to its failure to develop into a universal movement, ending up as “the ghetto theological work” of some intellectuals.

Furthermore, Ikeda’s view of the divine provides a clue to infer his religious attitude. According to Ikeda, Tolstoy’s and Botev’s view of the divine is like a ray of sunlight shining down on the peasants and the people, “descending from the heights of heaven into the depths of human life to liberate people from the power of authoritarian spell” (Ikeda 2011, p. 222). It is noteworthy that through these two men’s view of God, we can have a glimpse of Ikeda’s understanding of the Christian God.

It is now meaningless to pursue Tolstoy’s and Botev’s “God” here and there in the light of religious doctrine. What they risked their lives to appeal for is that religion exists “for humanity”, and when we forget that starting point, we will soon fall down a steep slope of corruption (Ikeda 2011, p. 222).

Ikeda considers the existence of religion and God to be “for humanity”, or more specifically, “human liberation”. To Ikeda, liberation is not an unrealistic rhetoric such as an idealistic idea or political slogan. This is proven by his statement that “people should be judged not by what they think, but by how they act” (Ikeda and Rotblat 2020, pp. 64–65). In this way, Ikeda, in his conversation with Harvey Cox, a world-renowned scholar of secular theology, makes it clear that exchanges and dialogues with other languages, cultures, and religions must be manifested as “practices” or praxis in real society (Ikeda and Cox 2019, p. 36). For Ikeda, praxis is the realization of human liberation through nonviolence and pacifism. Such disposition is concretely expressed in his efforts to eliminate wars, which Ikeda says is the duty of humanity living in the 21st century.

First, there is “responsibility for the past”. We live on the sacrifices of more than 100 million people who died in wars in the 20th century alone. It is our responsibility to them. Second, there is “responsibility for the present”. The world is now facing a life crisis due to poverty and hunger, with hundreds of millions of people in danger of losing their lives…. Humanity must break this vicious cycle now. Third, there is “responsibility for the future”. In the future, wars and military expansion will not only increase the risk of nuclear war, but also the risk of destroying the environment and ecosystem on a global scale, which will certainly take away humanity’s chance of survival (Ikeda and Rotblat 2020, p. 71).

Ikeda proposed the establishment of the UN Asia–Pacific Headquarters, a form of “global governance” through agreement by various organizations, that can concretize the historical experiment of humanity that could drive the important practical power of human liberation (Ikeda and Rotblat 2020, p. 221).18 What is important is that Ikeda’s spirit of liberation, which is infused with religious implications, was inspired by not only by his own personal experience but also the resistance spirit of the first and second presidents of Soka Gakkai.19 The spirit of liberation pursued by Ikeda is based on thorough “nonviolence” and “absolute pacifism”. Nonviolence is rooted in the classical religion of India, in the Sanskrit word ahimsa, the classical language of the Indo-Aryans. However, this idea was widely disseminated in modern society through Gandhi. For Gandhi, ahimsa can be summarized as not killing, treating the British like Indians, not being rude to people, and not using others’ suffering to pursue one’s own interests. Gandhi’s spirit of nonviolence spread to the United States and became the pillar of the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr.20 Ikeda deeply sympathized with this and warned against the spread of violence and hatred, which is the fruit of violence, saying that the way to break the endless chain of violence is nonviolence, the “sword of the spirit” (Ikeda and Cox 2019, p. 69). Ikeda emphasizes that what is important is “inheriting the spirit of ‘nonviolence’ that Dr. King risked his life to achieve” (Ikeda and Cox 2019, p. 75). However, this did not end as an empty declaration to attract political attention, but developed into a concrete practice. For example, Ikeda consistently worked for the reconciliation between China and Japan, culminating in the “Proposal for the Normalization of Sino-Japanese Relations” in 1968. He made the declaration with the conviction that friendly relations with China were absolutely necessary for the peace of Japan and Asia. Ikeda’s enthusiasm for peace eventually led to the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations in 1972, and he continually took concrete and practical steps toward peace diplomacy through meetings with the then Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in September 1974, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in December 1974, and Henry Kissinger in the United States in 1975 (Ikeda and Cox 2019, pp. 188–93). In particular, Ikeda’s meeting with Kissinger led to the declaration of the Three Basic Principles of Peace. Among the three principles, the first clause, “The opinions of the people of weaker countries must be given priority over the interests of powerful countries”, and the second clause, “Avoiding solutions through force and resolving only through negotiations”, can be seen as the nonviolence and pacifism that Ikeda pursued, ultimately leading to the spirit of liberation. The spirit of liberation, which is rooted in nonviolence and pacifism, is linked to human dignity that must be realized through religion. Ikeda says that religion should be a stimulant that awakens human dignity, saying, “one human life is heavier than the earth, and the dignity of life is maintained only when it is in harmony with nature” (Ikeda and Toynbee 2008a, pp. 103–4).21

In this regard, it is difficult to say that the “liberation” that Ikeda speaks of is completely in line with the motto of liberation theology, “preferential option for the poor and the non-human”, which Knitter puts forward as a common goal of religious traditions. However, given that Ikeda cites Tolstoy and Botev to advocate a transition from a metaphysical and doctrinal god to a god who reflects the peasants and the people, it can be inferred that there are aspects that resonate with the elements of Knitter’s religious liberation pluralism. Ikeda’s arguments that the opinions of the people of powerless countries should be prioritized over the interests of powerful countries, his emphasis on the importance of efforts for solidarity between the people of Korea and Japan to improve Korea–Japan relations, and his stress on “the empowerment of the people, by the people, and for the people” (Hiroki 2018, p. 349) also echo the elements of Knitter’s religious liberation pluralism. This is because the people’s solidarity advocated by Ikeda is “a broad phenomenon that transcends the power-building for achieving specific institutional reforms or the networking pursued by NGOs, and centers on the process in which the dignity of all human beings is exercised” and is “the very purpose of the life of people in the present age who face global-scale challenges” (Im and Hiroki 2018, pp. 310–11). In other words, people’s solidarity is a movement in which each individual, aware of their infinite inherent power, takes responsibility for themselves and urges action for the good of humanity (Im and Hiroki 2018, pp. 310–11).

In summary, Ikeda can be said to transcend the “microcosmic dimension and the metacosmic dimension”, that is, the mundane world (lokiya) and the transcendental world (lokottara), in that he has a religious orientation that aims for a “Transphenomenal Beyond” like the ultimate reality, while at the same time emphasizing human liberation (Byun 1996b, p. 235). This position of Ikeda on religious pluralism resonates with Ninian Smart’s religious thought:

To know how sacred a human being is, we need to recognize something beyond. In a sense, each individual is a world and a universe in itself. Also, every person is like a god. Therefore, we all must respect the creativity and joy of others and feel compassion for the lonely suffering of others. Religion lets us know that all human beings have immortal dignity.

(Smart 2000, p. 182)

Therefore, Ikeda does not deny participation in the here and now, that is, in the cosmic, but at the same time regresses to the metacosmic, the metacosmic transcending the cosmic dimension, or, in Buddhist terms, the wisdom that pursues nirvana (the ultimate reality) and, at the same time, the compassion (liberation) that descends to this world.

4. Conclusions

In recognizing “dialogue” as the most important point in interreligious attitudes, like many other scholars before him, Ikeda sees the conversation between King Menander I Soter of ancient Greece and the Buddhist sage Nāgasena of India as an intellectual dialogue that connected the West and the East two thousand years ago, and as a dialogue that transcended social status or circumstances and was conducted with an open spirit as equals (Ikeda and Cox 2019, pp. 194–95). However, Ikeda sees dialogue as the realization of true discourse that creates the value of peace, not simply an exchange of words that convey each other’s opinions. For Ikeda, interreligious dialogue, where the values of true peace are realized, is understood as recognizing and appreciating differences as well as recognizing, respecting, and cooperating with common beliefs and practices: “By listening to the opinions of others, we can discover others more deeply. Wouldn’t such an act allow us to rediscover ourselves and deepen and expand the foundations of the ideas and philosophies on which we are based? Only then can we draw out new horizons of cooperation” (Ikeda and Cox 2019, p. 197). In this regard, Ikeda’s attitude toward other religions can be said to be similar to that of John B. Cobb, Jr. who, while maintaining Christian centrism, pursued mutual transformation through encounters and dialogues with other religions. However, this does not mean that Ikeda’s religious pluralism can be categorized as pluralistic pluralism. Ikeda can be defined as a person with a religious view that implies open-minded pluralism that embraces all religions, in that he emphasizes dialogue, respect, cooperation, understanding, and trust with monotheistic Christianity and Islam, and with multi-layered religions of India and China. In addition, Ikeda’s attitude toward other religions shares the viewpoint of the common essence school, that is, monistic pluralism, in that it assumes the self as the Great Self and the eternal One, which is analogous to the true self of Mahayana Buddhism. Ikeda’s attitude toward other religions can also be said to have the characteristics of religious liberation or salvation-centered pluralism, in that it believes that religion and God should be thoroughly for the sake of humans and that they should focus on “liberation” of humans. When we consider that liberation in religion is a transition from the impure land where inequality, injustice, discrimination, and violation of human rights occur to the pure land where nonviolence, peace, justice, and equality are realized, Ikeda’s religious pluralistic attitude can be said to have a very strong religious liberationist character. Moreover, he can be presumed to be a religious person with an open-minded and pluralistic stance, in that he pays attention to differences as well as similarities between religions.

In summary, Ikeda’s perception of religion cannot be defined as pluralistic religiosity, but rather as having multifaceted religiosity. “Pluralism” refers to a religiousness that has a unitary system of thought that converges into one in that it recognizes many while at the same time presupposing a fundamental primacy. In contrast, “multifaceted” refers to the wide and diverse expression of various positions or viewpoints on religion. In that respect, Ikeda’s multifaceted religiosity is different from the “discordant concord” that Panikkar asserts. “Discordant concord” is the dynamic of multiplicity toward oneness or unity, just as harmony does not match when there is no diversity of sounds or when those sounds are unified into one musical score. This is because unity is neither oneness nor pluralism, nor does it reach oneness without giving up differences (Panikkar 1987, p. 145). Panikkar’s discordant concord can be said to be a normative and theological concept that implies a dynamic that aims for oneness rather than unity while maintaining the self-identity of individual religions. In contrast, Ikeda’s multifaceted religiosity shows multifaceted characteristics in that aspects of the common essence school and religious liberation of other religions are diversely expressed in his various writings and activities, and thus a phenomenological appearance that excludes normativity is revealed. Therefore, when looking at Ikeda’s attitude toward other religions from a phenomenological perspective of religion, it can be seen that the various dimensions described above coexist in diverse and various individual fragments, rather than theological aspects that inherently contain elements of religious agreement or disagreement, or harmony and fusion. However, the characteristic of multifaceted religious nature may not be free from the criticism that it is an “abstract” discourse with no characteristics when compared to academic discussions in the West. In addition, if this multifaceted religiosity is fixed and forced as another “ism”, it can be criticized in that it runs the risk of going beyond the characteristics of a relativistic attitude, which can be considered a merit of religious pluralism, and turning into another religious absolute.

In the end, Ikeda can be evaluated as a person whose religious view focuses on human “liberation” and pursues practical religious practices rather than metaphysically or speculatively presupposing the “commonality” of religion or presenting the “differences” of religion.