The Redemption Theory of Uzimura Kanzo

Abstract

Uzimura Kanzo who was grown up in a pantheist world converted into Chistianity that he understood as a monotheism. As a Christian he had struggled to achieve the salvation through completing his morality, ending up to realize that as a human being he was not deserved to be saved without grace. After all, he accepted the doctrine that the redemption from sins could be achieved not by a work but by a faith as ‘the Truth.’ Based on such process of his thinking and practicing, he had developed his redemptive faith and redemption theory in his book, Gu An Rok(求安錄: meaning a record of salvation and peace). He argued for the undeserved-ness of human beings and divine initiative for the salvation and expanded his notion of salvation into generalized salvation for all humanity, based on his own theory of ‘atonement redemption’. For him, salvation was not the matter of human beings. He also argues for ‘objective grace’, meaning no one could be escape from the love of God. Such his thought could be interpreted into the statement of his faith that he, ‘a sinner of sinneres’, had been saved. Uzimura, in his redemption theory, argued that the justice and love of God was not dualistic but united on the cross of Jesus Christ. He said that as for the relationship of salvation and morality, the latter was not the precondition for the former, but had to be the consequence of it, enabling to maintain the balance between the divine heteronomy and human autonomy.