해방 후 1세대 한국 기독교철학자들의 생각(1)

Abstract

This paper aims to introduce and organize the thoughts of the first generation of Korean Christian philosophers after liberation. The seven philosophers belonging to this include Kim Ha-tae, Kim Hyung-seok, Ahn Byung-wook, Cho Yo-han, Choi Myung-gwan, Ko Boem-seo, and Lee Kyu-ho, but this paper deals first with the preceding four philosophers. They were born in the 1920s after the March 1st Independence Movement except for Kim Ha-tae, who was born in the 1910s, and were part of the generation that experienced military dictatorship and industrialization from the 3rd Republic to the 5th Republic of Korea. Most of them served as professors until the late 1980s when the Republic of Korea achieved proper democracy. Therefore, philosophy for them was to think philosophically of the issue of historical reality - the division of the two Koreas, ideological confrontation, developmental dictatorship coupled with economic development in Korean society. Therefore, in general, they had conflicts with the Christian and politically conservative churches, and remained at arm's length from politics, but remained scathingly critical of society and political reality. However, while using Western philosophy, which originated in Greece, as a tool for reason, they always used Christian faith as a partner in conversation. They did not give up their attempts to find answers in Christianity by experiencing and looking at the birth and curved development of the Republic of Korea. Kim Ha-tae (1916-2007), a graduate of Yeonhui College of Liberal Arts, earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Southern California before liberation, and returned to study at Yonsei University's Theological School. Having re-immigrating to the United States in 1961, he served as the leader of the early Korean community in Southern California, and also presented immigration theology in the mid-1970s. He pursued the encounter of Christian faith and Oriental thought in "Modern Man and Religion" (1961), "Ego and Nothing" (1974), and "Finding the Real Reality of the Ultimate" (2005). Ahn Byung-wook (1920-2013) was born in Ryonggang County, South Pyongan Province and graduated from Waseda University in 1943 with a degree in philosophy. In 1958, he became a professor at Soongsil University in 1969 after a week of "Sasanggye". He wrote philosophical lectures for the public and many public philosophical books. The uniqueness of his ideas lies in the dissolution of Western existentialism and the Confucian scriptures into Christian faith. He was also involved in the Heungsadan in respect of Dosan Ahn Chang-ho. Kim Hyung-seok (1920–present) was born in Unsan, North Pyongan Province and grew up in Daedong-gun, the same hometown as Kim Il-sung. He graduated from Soongsil Middle School in Pyongyang with a degree in philosophy at Sophia University in Japan. He defected to North Korea in 1947 and worked as a teacher and vice principal at Jungang Middle and High School in Seoul. He served as a professor of philosophy at Yonsei University for 31 years from 1954. Like Ahn Byung-wook, he served as a philosopher and essayist, contributing to promoting philosophy to the public. In particular, his essays "The Disease of Solitude" and "The Dialogue of Eternal Love" sought to present young people with social ethics based on Christian existentialism in the 1960s and 1970s. He retired in 1985 and has been writing and lecturing since he is over 100 years old. Jo Yo-han (1926-2002) was born in North Korea in the same year, studied philosophy at Seoul National University and graduate school at the same University, and took the path of a typical academic scholar as a professor at Soongsil University. Starting with Kierkegaard and Jasper's existential philosophy, he became interested in Western classical philosophy and aesthetics. He was very critical of the dictatorship and became a dismissed professor as president of the Council of Christian Professors and later deeply involved in reality as president of Soongsil University. In this paper, I would like to reveal how I contributed to the history of Christian philosophy in return by finding traces of Christian reflection by the first generation of Christian philosophers in Korea after liberation and revealing their differences according to their personal orientation.