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In contemporary theology and philosophy of religion, discussions of God or the gods, of what is sacred or what is divine, generally assume some monistic view rooted in one or another of the dominant world religions. This monism is particularly apparent in cross-cultural discussions of what is divine, where the universalism of certain strands of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity hold sway. In these discussions, our theology and philosophy of religion assume that later, philosophically and/or theologically "developed" conceptions of what is divine set the standard. Unfortunately, in the process, the diversity of our experience of what is divine is forgotten, particularly the archaic experience of the divine.
At least two thinkers, however, serve as exceptions to this tendency. In the East there is Motoori Norinaga, the first great "philosopher" in the kokugaku ("native studies" or "national learning") movement during the Tokukawa period. In the West, there is the twentieth-century German thinker Martin Heidegger. For both Motoori and Heidegger, archaic thinking is not "primitive" but somehow originary and primordial, a vital resource for thinking rather than a remnant from a bygone era. Instead of eschewing the archaic notions of what is divine found in their traditions, Motoori and Heidegger explore the meanings of the divine in their respective traditions as part of their overall efforts to rethink and reevaluate the dominant philosophical and religious traditions of their day. In this essay, I want to use Motoori and Heidegger and their considerations of the archaic notions of kami and daimon as touchstones for reflecting cross-culturally on what is divine. Using their insights and other sources, I also hope to get indications of what it would be to do philosophy of religion in the archaic, and what that means for our general understanding of philosophy of religion.
We will start with Motoori and his interpretation of kami. At the beginning of a famous and oft-quoted passage in his commentary on the Kojiki (one of the ancient Japanese classics), Motoori notes that Generally speaking, 'kami' denotes, in the first place, the deities of heaven and earth that appear in the ancient texts and also the spirits enshrined in the shrines; furthermore, among all kinds of beings-including not only human beings but also such objects as birds, beasts, trees,...