A Vision of Religion in the Contemporary World : For the future of Shiseigaku

In this essay, speculation on the future of shiseigaku (thanatology, or the study of death and life), the theme of this volume of the Annual of the Institute of Thanatology 2019, is made. In the first part, a brief review of the history of shiseigaku in Japan is given. While focusing on the Institute of Thanatology’s activities at Toyo Eiwa University, I explain my own concept of shiseigaku and its relationship to religion. Shiseigaku emerged in Japan in the last decade of the 20th century, and one of its aims was to assume some roles that had been previously fulfilled by religion, without a person having to belong to any particular church or religious tradition. It can be seen as a successor of religion in the secularized, “disenchanted” world where religious world views that include transcending one’s existence become more and more difficult to maintain. Furthermore, many churches seem to em-phasize the importance of humanistic actions in the “immanent” world, and believe that people’s reason for living (reason d’être) resides in such actions. The future of shiseigaku depends on whether it succeeds in taking over the role religion had played in pre-modern society, especially its role in people’s aspiration for transcendence, which cannot be, in my view, absent in human beings. Furthermore, transcendence appears in different ways and styles in traditional religions. In wanting to contribute to seeking these ways and styles in shiseigaku in the future, in the latter part of this essay I put for-ward my own vision of religion. In doing this, I use the image of religion as a hole that opens up amidst the “immanent” secularized world.departmental bulletin pape