The Toynbee-Ikeda Dialogue: Man Himself Must Choose

For over two years, historian Arnold J. Toynbee and religious leader Daisaku Ikeda exchanged views on a wide range of topics, probing for answers to the urgent as well as the perennial questions that confront humanity’s existence. From the personal to the international and the political to the philosophical, every sphere of human nature and interaction was vigorously discussed by these two men, who, though of different cultures and traditions, shared the same commitment to the value of human life and the biosphere that sustains it. While their exchanges occurred in London in the 1970s, the insights they offer are timeless and relevant, providing both a panorama and a vital framework for understanding the choices and interlinked issues facing humanity in the 21st century. Toynbee, raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and Ikeda, a product of East Asian culture and a Buddhist, agree on the dilemma facing the individual and society: self-mastery or self-destruction. This challenge underlies humanity’s task in responding to the many global concerns we face, which include population growth, dwindling natural resources, armed conflict and life with technology. The exchanges culminate in an examination of the spiritual life of the human being—the sphere from which meaning and a sense of value derive—and the role it plays in the directionality of all human endeavors. If planetary existence is threatened by our capacity for destruction, then constructive change must be the effective counterbalance. "Changes of institutions,” Toynbee and Ikeda agree, “are effective only insofar as they are symptoms and consequences of the spiritual self-transformation of the persons whose relations with each other are the network that constitutes human society."