ABSTRACT
The true “place of nothingness” is not the place of variance, but that of
liveliness and evanescence. When one enters this topos of life and death
after internally transcending the concept of genus, the meaning of acting
then becomes nullified, and only seeing remains … What it sees is not
acting. It should see that which includes acting within itself. When one
speaks of a truly pure act (junsuisayou), it should not be acting, but
Nishida is perhaps the first of the world-theologians of our times. He
does not merely represent the East when he enters into a dialogue with
Kierkegaard, Barth, Tillich, and the other Western theologians whom
he cites. Nishida is as much a biblical or Christian theologian as he is a
For a proper understanding of Tadao Ando’s Christian architecture, the discussion of
the anti-semiotic, anti-representational attitude of the School of Things (Mono-ha) is
significant. This is because it illuminates the character of the cultural milieu in which
Ando was struggling with the status of the cross, the universal symbol of Christianity.
Ando had to cope with the degradation of the symbol into an atrophied sign in order
