Kant and the New Philosophy of Religion

Recent scholarship has tried to paint Immanuel Kant's religion in an agnostic and, in at least one case, atheistic light. The religion Kant has, traditionally, been seen as one built entirely on reason, with clear metaphysical boundaries around those few phenomenal things we can actually say about God. Kant makes it clear that we can not speak with any certainty about the noumenal world and the irreducible essence of things (die Ding an sich). In fact, we cannot even begin to prove that God exists at all, nor can we even be sure that our religious language corresponds to any real object. Additionally, Kant's religion has also been seen as a reduction of the "spiritual" dimensions to pure ethics, where obedience to the categorical imperative overshadows obedience to “God”.

Fortunately, Kant and the New Philosophy of Kant, edited by Chris L. Firestone and Stephen R. Palmquist, rightfully combats these old stereotypes and places Kant's discussion of religion in a greater context of his life and other writings.

Kant and the New Philosophy of Kant, is a wonderful collection of dozen fine essays. It would be fair to say that all of the essays interpret Kant in a theistic light. Indeed, the entire book makes the claim that an actual theology can be constructed from Kant's work. In part I, the various authors attempt to create a foundation for Kantian theology. In part II, this theology is practically applied and finally, in part III, religious institutions are explored in light of this theology. I particularly enjoyed "The Tree of Melancholy: Kant on Philosophy and Enthusiasm", "Kant on the Rational Instability of Atheism", "Making Sense out of Tradition: Theology and Conflict in Kant's Philosophy of Religion", and "A Kantian Model for Religious Deliverance". For those who know Kierkegaard, you might find the "Imaginary Dialogue" between Kant and the Danish philosopher particularly enjoyable.

This book, in my opinion, corrects a great deal of injustice to Kant's philosophy of religion. While it is true that (along with myself) Kant possesses a deep suspicion of any so-called proof of God’s existence and religious “enthusiasm” (Schwärmerei), Kant does not deny the concept of God or its value in producing a moral society. We simply lack the means of apprehending God. Or as Kant explains:

The transcendental idea of a necessary all-sufficient original being is so overwhelmingly great, so sublimely high above everything empirical, which is at all times conditioned, that . . . one can never produce enough material in experience to fill such a concept.

If there is a God, though, obedience to the moral law comes first for Kant, because if we obey God first we are apt to corrupt religion and God. (On top of that, I would say that when we are obeying God, we are really subjecting ourselves to Kant's moral imperitive because God Himself is perfectly subject to these laws.) “Religion,” Kant says, “is the recognition of all duties as [if they were] commands of God.” Even so, God is not proven in morality rather God and immortality are implied in moral action. “Morality in no way needs religion,” Kant says, but “morality inevitably leads to religion." We don’t need God to understand morality, but when we are moral we can hope that God will universally complete the promise of our obedience to duty.

We wish to live in a moral world. We wish for a perfect object as a guide, a measuring stick, a complete being willing to commune with us. The object of that desire is God. We long for God, love and morality, but we cannot possess them.

If the presence of a desire can be seen as an absence in the being of the desirer, an absence that can be filled only by something outside of the desirer, then one can understand all desiring beings internally divided and alienated from themselves; what makes a desiring being whole is the object of its desire, which lies outside of it.

In the end, Kant’s religion can be seen, not moral reductionism or refuge of hardened agnosticism but rather, as one of radical fideism.

Kant believed that his work was not to constrain Biblical religion by reason alone, but to illuminate everything in the Bible "that can also be recognized by mere reason." Indeed, God could provide "an empirical revelation [Offenbarung] of theological truths". According to Kant, phenomenal experiences may just be the extension of the noumenal. Therefore, while God cannot be objectified (John 1:18), He may extend Himself into the experiential world. Kant does not come out and say it, but it is certainly an implied explanation of the deity of Christ (John 1:14).

For someone who has always been on the lookout for reasons to believe, Kant has (almost) always been a comfort to me. When I first read Kant for myself, years ago, I felt that I had found a fellow sojourner. Yet, the humanistic commentary seemed to drown out what I felt was valuable in Kant’s religion. This book brings Kant back from the blind precipice of dogmatic agnosticism.