Conclusion
摘要
Nishitani writes that in śūnyatā, “being and non-being [do not] mingle together in each thing as if they were quantitative elements” [Nishitani (Religion and Nothingness. University of California Press, 1982: 94)]. The same applies to emptiness and fullness. Unification does not mean to join two parts or to fuse them. To see being as nothingness is not to negate being and obtain non-being in return. Emptiness is not replaced with fullness, and we rather simply recognize that emptiness is fullness. Does fanā’ enable such thinking? A thinking of God based not only on kenosis and śūnyatā, but also on fanā’, must be understood as a deconstruction of the idea of God as “fullness.” What is deconstructed is the idea of God as something that simply “is,” or the idea of God as “something full” that can still be contrasted with emptiness. Baqā’ is then understood not as a quantitative fullness destined to fill up the quantitatively empty space produced by fanā’, but as a state in which dualities are undifferentiated. It is more appropriate to think God as a self-contradictory entity of both fullness and emptiness.