KANT'S CRITICAL RELIGION

by Stephen Palmquist (stevepq@hkbu.edu.hk)

· Copyright Stephen Palmquist

· Last updated on 8 February 2007.

· This is an online version of a book published by Ashgate Publishing Company, Ltd. (Aldershot, England), 2000.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix

List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Note on References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

PART ONE:

THE SYSTEMATIC FOUNDATIONS OF KANT’S SYSTEM

I. Kant’s Theocentric Metaphysics

1. Kant: Destroyer or Preserver of Metaphysics? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2. Metaphysics in Kant’s Philosophical Writings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

3. The Theocentric Orientation of Kant’s Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

4. The Scope of This Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

II. Kant’s Dreams of a Critical Mysticism

1. The Traditional Myth of Kant’s ‘Awakening’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2. Kant’s Criticism of Swedenborg’s Mystical Dreams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

3. Kant’s Four Major ‘Awakenings’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

4. The Dream of a System of Critical Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

III. Kant’s Critical Philosophy: An Overview of KSP1

1. The General Structure of Kant’s System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44

2. The Epistemological Underpinnings of the Critical Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

3. The Structural Elements of Kant’s Three Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

4. God and Religion in the Context of Kant’s Metaphysics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

PART TWO: KANT’S PERSPECTIVAL FOUNDATION

FOR CRITICAL THEOLOGY

IV. Theistic Alternatives to Proving God’s Existence:

Kant’s ‘Appropriation’ of Lampe’s God:

1. The Problem of Transcendental Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

2. Hypothetical Theology: God as a Regulative Idea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

3. Physicotheology: Judicial Evidence for the God-Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

4. Moral Theology: The Ultimate Rationale for Theistic Belief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75

V. Symbolic Theology and the Nature of God

1. God’s Transcendence: Human Reason vs. Divine ‘Reason’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

2. Philosophical Theology and the Symbolic Immanence of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

3. Reason’s Theological Need: Architectonic Perspectives

on the Perspectiveless Ground of Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

4. God’s Trinitarian Nature: Holiness, Benevolence, and Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

VI. Religion as the Synthesis of Theology and Morality

1. Kant’s Reductionism: Explanatory or Eliminative? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114

2. Prolegomena to Kant’s System of Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

3. A Preview of Kant’s System of Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

4. Raising Morality to the Status of Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

PART THREE: KANT’S PERSPECTIVAL FOUNDATION

FOR CRITICAL RELIGION

VII. Kant’s System of Religious Perspectives

1. The Four Stages of Religion in General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140

2. The Conditions of Religion in the Moral Individual (-)

    A. Radical Evil (--) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

    B. Conversion to the Good (+-) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

3. The Conditions of Religion in the Moral Community (+)

    A. The Founding of a Church (-+) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

    B. Service of God (++) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175

4. An Analytic Summary and a Synthetic Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183

VIII. Christianity as the Universal Religion

1. Kant’s Copernican Perspective on Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .189

2. Kant’s Assessment of Biblical Religion

    A. The Creation Story and the Fall of Adam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

    B. The Gospel Story and the Nature of Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

    3. Kant’s Assessment of Christian Tradition

       A. The Universal Church and its Scriptures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

    B. Serving God: Clergy vs. Conscience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

4. The Harmony between System_r-C and System_{r-m .} . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

IX. A Kantian System of Biblical Theology

1. The Biblical Theology of a Kantian Christian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

2. Christian Practice: The Greatest Commandment

    A. Worship and the Love of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .251

    B. Fellowship and the Love of Human Beings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

    3. Christian Belief: Preaching and Teaching the Word

       A. Evangelism and the Gospel of the Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

    B. Doctrine and the Authority of God’s Revealed Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

4. A Christian Critique of Kant’s Critical Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

PART FOUR: KANT’S PERSPECTIVAL FOUNDATION

FOR CRITICAL MYSTICISM

X. Reason’s Birth in Immediate Experience

1. Mysticism and Religious Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

2. Kant’s Apparent Rejection of Mysticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

3. Kant’s Disclosure of Critical Mysticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

4. Meditative Metaphors and the Shaping of a Mystical World View . . . . . . . . . . 317

XI. The Tantalizing ‘Gap’ in Kant’s System

1. Förster’s Riddle: What Prompted Kant to Write Kt9? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

2. The Tantalizing Content of Kt9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

3. Kt9 as the Grand Synthesis of Kant’s System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .334

4. What was ‘Tantalizing’ about Kant’s Final Dream? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

XII. Transition to the End of All Philosophy

1. Kant’s Return to Immediate Experience: The Three Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348

2. God: The Categorical Imperative as Philosophy’s Moral End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

3. The World: Matter’s Living Force as Philosophy’s Technical End . . . . . . . . . . . . .367

4. The Ideal Human: Christ as Philosophy’s Highest Religious End . . . . . . . . . . . . . .374

APPENDICES

AI. The Story of Kant’s Critical Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .&nb