The Collapse of Chosenness

by Kazuhiko Hayashida

Kazuhiko Hayashida contends that the Puritan doctrine of predestination and Israel’s chosenness both fail the covenantal test, while Islam’s disciplined obedience demonstrates covenantal continuity, thus making the free-willed return to God the only true path of fulfillment.

I believe that the limits of Western interpretation and philosophy are exemplified by the fact that the entire trajectory of “sin → exclusion → wandering → death → return” up to the resurrection of Christ is, in fact, theoretically supported by Heidegger’s ontological structure (thrownness, being-toward-death), yet Western thought has deliberately fixed this into a “structure without an endpoint.”

However, if such a trajectory has already been explained by the great philosopher Heidegger, then should it not be possible to resolve more precisely the path leading to the conclusion? Calvin, for his part, theoretically asserted God’s election through the doctrine of predestination, yet he did not make the effort to elucidate the process of resurrection as a human structure.

Unfortunately, in order to resolve the contradictions of predestination, it is necessary to bypass Calvin’s claim, which is why I consider Heidegger’s ontological structure to be of great importance.

I have sought to interpret the path leading to the resurrection of Christ as a human structure of return, to redefine it as a reenactment of the Exodus — the primal structure — and thereby unify the theological fact (Christ’s death and resurrection) within a single frame.

That is to say, if all who are thrown into existence possess within themselves a “structure of return,” then revelation is structurally open to all people, and resurrection is not election but the completion of structure.

God’s election can be interpreted as the act of being illuminated by the revealed path and walking upon it, which means progressing in one direction through free will. At the end of that journey, there naturally exists a goal. Because it is chosen through free will, the circumstances of the goal may differ, yet such differences are merely variations of image, while the essential outcome remains connected to the truth of return.

By consciously clarifying the “return” — union with God — that lies beyond Heidegger’s structure (thrownness → being-toward-death → disclosure), it becomes possible to converge the disclosure of existence as a “return through free will to the divine structure” into ethical and theological fulfillment.

“Election” is thus defined as “the response to revelation by free will,” and each individual’s walk is thought to be ultimately integrated into “return = divine order” as an “ontological sameness within difference.”

In other words, although many fail to return, those who return voluntarily are the chosen. The “chosen” are not a fixed list; those who did not accomplish return — that is, those who refused — were structurally invited but did not respond. Election is not the selection of actual beings but a structural response; it does not exist in the past but comes into being in the future.

To give an analogy: even if you possess a boarding ticket for a plane that is about to crash, you still have the freedom not to board. After the crash, one may say, “It was good I did not get on.”

The chosen, therefore, are “those who did not board that plane.” Their choice is retrospectively recognized, within the total structure, as the true election. Through this metaphor, I understand salvation as a being realized not through past certification but through future avoidance.

Thus predestination and the ideology of a chosen people cannot stand theoretically.

Malachi 2:7–8:

‘For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth. But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi,’ says the Lord Almighty.

This truth can be condensed as follows:

‘The lips of the priest have turned aside from the way, causing many to stumble in instruction; you have broken my covenant with Levi.’

This biblical passage evokes the collapse of predestination and the ideology of the chosen people, as mentioned at the outset. In other words, Puritan theology signifies the reappearance of the corrupted priestly class of Malachi, and the deviation from divine order through liberal Protestantism represents a renewed violation of the covenant with Levi, where God’s judgment (the primal ethics of the Old Testament) is reproduced in modernity’s pseudo-institutional order (liberal theology) in a symbolic and hollowed-out form.

Have you ever questioned those teachings in our present age? It is astonishing that, though this has always been so, no one has denied it, and before our eyes stood a Babel built invisibly by human hands.

If predestination and the ideology of the chosen people are in error, then Puritanism and Jewish radical right-wing thought share the same pathology. Today, Israel’s radical right acts violently even before awaiting the Messiah’s return, but, far from being justified, they lose their very foundation, for the God of Islam is our God and not an alien deity.

Modern Israel does not fight against pagans like Baal of the Old Testament era; rather, it raises the sword against peoples devoted to our Father, claiming to have been chosen by Him, and yet attacking those who worship Him. This is an outrage.

According to my structural theory of return, unless they can prove false my claim that antitheistic equality of self must be abandoned and that return to God — defined as retroactively being chosen through free-willed return — is the true doctrine, they are sprinting headlong into the future foretold by Malachi.

Will they be able to endure judgment then? In order to be chosen, they must prove that I am 100% wrong. Only then will they be able to stand before God with complete confidence.

Muslims, at least not merely in form but in practice, live by God’s law through their five daily prayers, fasting, purity, and complete submission to Allah. They call upon the Father as the “One God.” The discipline of their religious practice strongly resembles the external signs of the Old Testament covenant.

In contrast, Western consciousness of chosenness — especially in Puritan-derived liberal theology — relies simply on “believing” in human words that claim “we are chosen,” while abandoning law and practice.

What I fear is the singularity of the Abrahamic covenant. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all connected to Abraham. Any theology that excludes Ishmael — the lineage of Islam — from the covenant contains within itself self-contradiction. Therefore, Islam is not a foreign religion.

From this perspective, within Judaism, those who raise the sword against their brethren and oppress them must be regarded as destroyers of divine order itself.

The ideology of the chosen presupposes fulfillment of the covenant. Through covenant violation (raising the sword against brethren, destroying order, breaking the covenant of Levi), God Himself abandons the obligation of fulfillment, and thus the probability of that ideology’s realization shifts into a state of zero or cancellation by God. This is guaranteed by the tribunal of judgment beginning with Malachi, which shows that while chosenness may remain formally or symbolically, its actual fulfillment can be annulled by God.

Then, even if not of the same ethnicity, when one raises the sword against a people who worship the same God and faithfully uphold rituals and commandments, can 100% fulfillment of the covenant truly be hoped for?

The ideology of chosenness depends on the memory of a unilateral declaration of “God has chosen,” but when confronted by the tribunal that election without fulfillment is invalid, it falls into the condition of being judged.

Yet the path of return to God remains open. It requires only the immediate abandonment of antitheistic equality of self born of a strong ego, and to return. In truth, we already stand before judgment.

To return to one’s God from false teachings through one’s own will — this is the work of free will, and I believe this is the love God has given to humankind.

No conversion is necessary. What matters is to return to one’s own God. Even the devout Jew must face this tribunal. And what then becomes of Puritanism, defined solely by a human doctrine of predestination?

That is something each must consider for himself. Through free will.

(Translated from the Japanese)