Lecture I: On the Primary and Secondary Contacts between God and Man

Abstract

I have written before on the primary and secondary contacts between God and man, in my book on Buddhism and Christianity (Bukkyo to Kirisutokyo, Kyoto: Hoz6kan, 1964). I am concerned that the word might give the impression that at first God and man were separate and then they came into contact afterward. That is not llsy meaning. Rather, my thesis is that the primary contact between God and man is the unconditional meeting of God with man at the ground of each human self. This is the most fundamental fact, one could say the archefact, in the order of human reality. It is therefore dimensionally different from human qualities such as pureness of heart or greatness of achievements. Moreover it is quite distinct from any human activity and any particular human figure. Because it is prior to human activity, there is in this fact itself neither verbal expression nor even intuition. It is also to be distinguished from the unconscious, which is part of human activity. I referred above to the human self. Of course man is not man on account of his own activity; his humanity does not come from himself. The human self lies quite beyond human power and activity; it transcends the human world and human history. At the ground of human being is something so utterly different from human activity that we can say that man becomes man without any ground or aim in the usual sense. There exists, a priori, Life itself, the absolutely formless and infinite Subject which is, and acts, through itself and in itself. It is this Subject which causes man to be man. In other words, at the ground of human being is a decision, a determination, quite different from human will and action, quite different from any activity in this world. This is what I call the archedecision, the primary contact between God and man which is at the same time the boundary between them. From man's humanness arise the acts by which he relates himself to himself and to other men. These relations are then judged by the archedecision. Jodo Buddhism does not speak of judgment by a deity, as Christianity does. Man is