Nishida Kitaro’s Philosophy of Religion: A Challenge to the Philosophy of Western Religion

This study tries to show that Nishida Kitaro's philosophy is an eclectic philosophy in which Western rationalist thinking on the one hand, and Eastern intuitive thinking on the other hand are intertwined and has a religious nature. Therefore, in his philosophy, philosophy and religion are inseparable. In Nishida Kitaro's view, God is not a transcendent being of the world, but the absolute nonexistence which forms the foundation of reality, and is found as an event within the human soul through inner intuition. The soul and God are of the same type, which is absolute non-existence. In the philosophy of the Nishida religion, God is not a being outside the world, but the foundation of this world. In his research book on goodness, Nishida emphasizes that religion is not a secondary issue in human existence and life, but the most important aspect of human existence. Our souls take their lives from religion. According to him, the religious need is the deepest and greatest need of the human mind. He believes that all our needs are derivatives that arise from religious needs and that the growth of these needs is the result of returning to them [religious needs]. Religion does not exist apart from the life of the soul or the self, and religious need is the need of life itself. Therefore, by studying Nishida's philosophy of religion, it can be concluded that his philosophy of religion, by providing a specific Buddhist definition of it, is a challenge to the philosophy of religion prevalent in the West.