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    Published: 2025-12-18
    Vol. 25 (2025)

    The Holy Scripture as a Collection of Christian Koans?

    Piotr Goniszewski
    Studia Oecumenica
    Section: Dialogi ekumeniczne i międzyreligijne
    DOI https://doi.org/10.25167/so.5686

    Kakichi Kadowaki SJ and His New Biblical Hermeneutics

    Abstract

    The purpose of this article is a theological evaluation of the approach to reading the Bible proposed by Kakichi Kadowaki SJ in his monograph Zen and the Bible. This new method of reading has been defined by the Japanese Jesuit as a new biblical hermeneutics and is modeled on the koan practice of Japanese Zen Buddhism. In the first section of the article I presented a short introduction to Zen koans, showing the history of koans, their literary structure, and the contemporary way of practicing zazen with koans in the Rinzai school. This background is very important because Kakichi Kadowaki SJ was a student of Sogen Omori (1904–1994 AD; Japanese: Ōmori Sōgen), an outstanding representative of the Rinzai school in contemporary Japan. In the second section I presented the method of new biblical hermeneutics. According to the guidelines of J. Kakichi Kadowaki SJ, in order to work with the biblical text in the manner of Zen koans, one must first achieve a state of stable concentration (samādhi) and then introduce a selected biblical passage into the mind. One should not analyze a given passage discursively, but keep it constantly in consciousness until one obtains intuitive insight into its existential meaning. In the third point of the article, I made a theological assessment of the new biblical hermeneutics of the Japanese Jesuit. It seems that the greatest difficulty in the broad application of Kakichi Kadowaki SJ’s method is the different nature and purpose of koans and the Holy Scriptures. Koans are aimed at enabling the experience of awakening (satori/kenshō), while the Holy Scriptures are to lead a person to conversion (μετάνοια). However, awakening and conversion are not the same experiences and have a completely different nature and place in the life of the practitioner. The experience of awakening is closer to the Christian experience of unio mystica, not μετάνοια.

    Keywords:

    zen, Christian-Buddhist dialogue, Christian meditation, Christian zen

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    Goniszewski, P. (2025). The Holy Scripture as a Collection of Christian Koans? : Kakichi Kadowaki SJ and His New Biblical Hermeneutics. Studia Oecumenica, 25, 179–196. https://doi.org/10.25167/so.5686

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