Chapter VI

Religion as the Synthesis of Theology and Morality

 

 

Morality thus leads ineluctably to religion, through which it extends itself to the idea of a powerful moral Lawgiver, outside of mankind, for Whose will that is the final end (of creation) which at the same time can and ought to be man’s final end. [Kt8:3-6(3-6), e.a.]

 

1. Kant’s Reductionism: Explanatory or Eliminative?

       In the course of examining Kant’s views on the existence and nature of God in the first two chapters here in Part Two, we have had ample opportunity to witness Kant’s tendency to solve theological problems by relating them to morality. Before beginning our in-depth investigation of Kant’s theory of reli­gion in Part Three, let us therefore pause to consider Kant’s reasons for adopt­ing such a strategy. The most commonly accepted explanation is to portray Kant as a reductionist, seeking to demonstrate the uselessness of all theology and religion by showing how everything genuine in them boils down to moral­ity. Kant’s religion, so the story goes, is purely a religion of good works in which even the notion of a real God is ultimately dispensable. But does Kant reduce theology and religion to morality? Before answering this question, we must clarify just what it means to ‘reduce’ one idea or way of thinking to another. What would it mean for someone to ‘reduce religion to morality’?

       Reductionism can be understood in either a loose or a strict sense, which we can call ‘explanatory’ and ‘eliminative’ reductionism, respectively.[1] In the loose sense reductionism means explaining everything relevant to a given field of inquiry in terms of a single, all-pervasive factor outside that field, which is necessary to a proper understanding of that field. For example, proponents of a double aspect theory of the relationship between brain states and mental states might argue that every mental state is directly correlated to some brain state; yet this would not require them to treat the two types of states as identical, or to advocate the actual description of all mental states in terms of brain states. Strict, eliminative reductionists, by contrast, believe one special way of ex­plain­ing something is not only necessary, but self-sufficient, so that it can ac­tually replace, or explain away all other possible explanations. Proponents of strict reductionism would argue that all talk of mental states is pointless, since noth­ing but brain states exists or has any value.

       If we accept this distinction between explanatory and eliminative forms of reductionism, then the question occupying our attention can be rephrased in two ways: loosely, Does Kant regard morality as the single explanatory factor in terms of which all that is necessary to religion can be explained? and strictly, Does Kant believe religion can be ‘explained away’ as nothing but a special form of morality? In other words, does Kant think morality is necessary for all true religion, and if so, does he also think it is sufficient?

       To many readers of Kant his motives seem so obvious that they never bother even to pose such questions. Kant clearly does reduce religion to morality (in both senses), so the story goes, for he consistently defines religion as ‘the recognition of all duties as divine commands’ [Kt8:153(142); see below, note VI.18]. Does this not require us to regard religion as nothing but a special way of looking at human duties—i.e., at morality? In­deed, we need go no further than the title of Kant’s most important book on re­ligion, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone [Kt8], to see that he assumes right from the start that religion can and ought to be viewed only within a narrow set of rational limits—a reduction if ever there was one! Likewise, if we open the book itself, we find that on the first few pages of the first edition Preface Kant tells us morality is not based on religion; rather, religion is based on morality. And throughout the rest of the book, he repeatedly passes judgment on reli­gious beliefs and practices by asking about their value for the moral improve­ment of the religious believer.

       We should not be surprised, therefore, to find interpreters as prestigious as Cassirer, whose study of Kant’s life and works is usually quite trust­worthy, assuming an affirmative answer to the question at issue without supporting his view with any textual evidence:

 

... the Kantian system does not in general recognize the philosophy of religion as a fully independent member of the system, as a way of looking at things that is id­iosyncratic and rests on autonomous and independent assumptions [i.e., on its own distinct standpoint].... [Instead,] the substance of his philosophy of religion comprises for him only a confirmation of and a corollary of the substance of his ethics. Religion ‘within the limits of reason alone’ ... has no essential content other than that of pure morality. The conversion of pure rational religion into pure ethics is required ...[2]

 

Moreover, it is not uncommon, especially in brief summaries of Kant’s philos­ophy of religion, to read explicit statements of an even more dogmatic kind, such as Kroner’s claim that for Kant ‘religious life is nothing but a special mode of moral life’ [Kr56:35], Crichlow’s conviction that ‘Kant used every argument [in the second part of Kt8] to show that religion was the same thing as morality’ [Cr96:95], Baillie’s view that ‘Kant’s religion remained to the end a mere legalistic moralism’ with ‘an eighteenth-century Legislator’ attached [Ba39:159], Walsh’s interpretation of Kant’s ‘religious attitude’ as ‘a way of representing morality, not a way of going beyond it’,[3] Vossenkuhl’s insistence that ‘the systematic precondition of [Kant’s] notion of rational religious belief’ is ‘that true religion is nothing but morality’,[4] or Edwards’ proclamation: ‘we have in Kant the complete reduction of religion to morality.’[5]

       However, if we put aside this long tradition and examine Kant’s own claims with an open mind, we shall find this traditional, unequivocally affirmative answer to our initial question to be unfaithful to his true intentions. Sadly, it comes so close to a proper understanding of the points Kant was actually trying to make, that its subtle distortions have remained virtually unchallenged.[6] In order to reveal these distortions, let us first take a close look at the three most obvious sources that seem at first to support the traditional myth of eliminative reductionism: the title of Kt8, its first edition Preface, and Kant’s definition of religion. For a proper understanding of these is indispensable if we are to understand Kant’s intentions. We can then take a general overview in VI.3 of the content of Kt8. In Part Three we shall do a more thorough examination of the details of the religious system expounded therein; but the preliminary overview in this chapter will provide us with enough evidence to make a fair assessment in VI.4 of the extent to which Kant’s Critical theology re­duces religion to morality.

 

2. Prolegomena to Kant’s System of Religion

      There are two common assumptions about the title of Kt8 (Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft) which, when made, virtually de­termine in advance that Kant’s views will be interpreted strictly, in terms of eliminative reductionism. Yet both of these assumptions are utterly opposed to Kant’s expressed intentions. The first as­sumption is that Grenzen refers to a strict limitation placed on religion by rea­son—a limitation establishing an abso­lute barrier that cannot in any way be overcome. Kant explains, however, that Grenzen must not be regarded in such a strict or one-sided way: ‘Bounds [Grenzen] ... always presuppose a space outside a certain definite place and in­closing it; limits [Schranken] do not require this, but are mere negations which affect a quantity so far as it is not absolutely complete.’[7] De­spite his reputation to the contrary, which developed largely as a result of the unfortu­nate ‘patchwork’ interpretations of his work, Kant is usually very careful to give precise meanings to the terms he uses, and then to stick by those mean­ings. So we should give serious consideration to the implications this pas­sage has for the title of Kant’s book. If Kant had wanted to say reason imposes limits upon religion that must not be surpassed, then he would surely have used the term Schranken. His use of Grenzen indicates that he has in mind a boundary (like a fence dividing two portions of land), on either side of which we can find legit­imate (though different) aspects of one and the same territory (viz., religion). On one side we find what is rationally necessary and on the other, what is em­pirically real. Kant’s title, then, does not reveal a desire to force all aspects of religion into a single, rational mold; rather, it reflects his favorite perspectival distinction between the transcendental and the empirical, and announces his intent to examine (as usual) one side of a fundamentally two-sided reality.[8]

       The second assumption regarding the title of Kant’s book concerns the proper interpretation of the phrase bloßen Vernunft, which has traditionally been rendered into English either as ‘Reason Alone’ or as ‘Mere Reason’. The former choice, adopted by Greene and Hudson in their standard translation of Kt8, would clearly imply self-sufficiency, and hence a tendency towards strict reductionism on Kant’s part. Yet, such a translation not only stretches the literal meaning of bloßen, but it neglects an important nu­ance in the original. This common German word can mean either ‘mere’ (thus indicating that something more is possible and perhaps even required for full satisfaction) or ‘naked’. Greene and Hudson were certainly aware of this dual meaning, since the text itself actually uses ‘naked reason’ as the translation for bloßen Vernunft at several points [see e.g., Kt8:10(9)]; nevertheless, they sup­pressed this implica­tion entirely in their translation of the title.[9] Perhaps their reason was that, if Kant had wanted to use ‘naked’ in his title, he probably would have used the more explicit word, nackt. With this in mind, however, a third alternative arises that does not seem to have occurred to any of Kt8’s transla­tors. An English word that parallels the dual meaning of bloßen almost exactly is ‘bare’: just like bloßen, it can mean either ‘mere’ or ‘naked’.[10]

       When these two mistaken assumptions are brought to light, a more accu­rate translation comes into view: Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason is the best English translation of what Kant himself intended to say in the title of Kt8. That Kant’s use of bloßen was an intentional, though covert, way of referring to nakedness can be clearly seen by taking note of the fact that in the text itself Kant makes use on several occasions of the analogy of ‘the re­ligion of reason’ being like a naked body that can be rendered presentable, or socially acceptable, only by dressing it in some type of clothing [see e.g., Kt8:195 (183); s.a. Kt65:53]. If Kant had not wanted to hint at such an analogy in his title, he almost certainly would have used a more technical term, such as reinen (‘pure’), to re­fer to the inner or ‘invisible’ aspects of all true religion. Similarly, that Kant’s use of Grenzen is meant to imply territorial boundaries, rather than absolute limits, is also suggested by other, related metaphors, such as when he consid­ers what happens when one side ‘trespasses’ on the other side’s property, or ‘imports something’ from the other side for use within ‘its own economy’, or ‘declares war on’ the other side [see e.g., Kt8:9-10(9),13(12)].

       The ‘double aspect’ (i.e., dual perspective) character of Kant’s system of religion is also made clear by several other analogies used from time to time in Kt8. Kant consis­tently refers to ‘the pure religion of reason’ not as itself consti­tuting everything necessary for true religion, but rather as providing us with its necessary core or ‘kernel’. He never regards other (i.e., nonmoral) aspects of religion as identical to false religion; rather, they become false only when the religious person fails to recognize them as the ‘shell’ or ‘vehicle’ (i.e., as the means) through which the ‘kernel’ or ‘canon’ (i.e., the end) of religion can be pro­moted, and as a result detaches them from their proper grounding in moral­ity [Kt8:123n(113n),135n(126n); Kt65:36-7]. All these analogies imply that, as we shall see in more detail in VI.3, Kant is thinking not about exclusive­ness, but about the proper priority between two necessary elements. Kant gives these two elements a number of different names, such as ‘faith’ and ‘pure religion’ as the two aspects of ‘religion’. (These two senses of ‘religion’ must be kept in mind if we are to avoid misunderstanding Kant’s view; so we shall return to them again shortly.) Indeed, just as each of Kant’s three Critiques is designed not to establish a system of metaphysics it­self, but to prepare the foundation upon which to construct the building of metaphysics, so also the title of Kt8 ought to remind us that this book is de­signed more as the Critical (transcen­dental) prolegomenon to real (empirical) religion, than as an attempt to replace all empirical manifestations of religion with a ‘pure’ alternative.

       On its own, of course, a proper understanding of the title of Kt8 does not constitute a conclusive argument on the basis of which we could answer the question at issue here. Rather, it only provides us with hints that may or may not shed new light on the text itself. Let us therefore turn our attention now to the beginning of the first Preface, where Kant seems at first sight to be portray­ing religion as just a footnote or ap­pendage to morality. In the first few paragraphs of this Preface [Kt8:3-6(3-6), e.a.], he asserts:

 

... morality ... stands in need neither of the idea of another Being over [mankind], for him to apprehend his duty, nor of an incentive other than the law itself ... Hence for its own sake morality does not need religion at all ...; ... it is self-suffi­cient.... But although for its own sake morality needs no representation of an end which must precede the determining of the will, it is quite possible that it is neces­sarily related to such an end, taken not as the ground, but as the inevitable conse­quence of maxims adopted as conformable to that end.... Morality thus leads in­eluctably to religion, through which it extends itself to the idea of a powerful moral Lawgiver, outside of mankind, for Whose will that is the final end (of cre­ation) which at the same time can and ought to be man’s final end.

 

Three key points arise out of this passage. Each of these leads to eliminative re­ductionism if it is just slightly misinterpreted. In what follows, therefore, I shall attempt to explain not only what Kant is trying to say in each case, but also how his words are misconstrued by a strict reductionist interpretation.

       First, Kant is saying that even though morality is logically, or perhaps transcendentally, self-sufficient (i.e., even though no reference to religion is needed to explain what morality is), morality is nevertheless teleologically in­complete (i.e., its ultimate purpose cannot be realized by remaining merely within its own bounds). Just as the foundation of a building is ‘complete’ in the sense that it can stand all on its own, and does not depend on any other structure in order to maintain its inner integrity, and yet its purpose is not complete until an ac­tual building is constructed upon it, so also the nature of moral action can be understood apart from any reference to religion, and yet the purpose of morality in general, as well as the actual fulfillment of the task morality presents to us, cannot be understood without stepping beyond the exclusively moral standpoint to adopt a new, religious standpoint, based on the moral. This point is sure to be misunderstood if we fail to take special note of Kant’s distinction between the ‘ground’ and ‘consequence’ (or ‘end’) of morality. When Kant says moral­ity ‘leads to religion’, he does not mean religion can therefore be explained away in terms of morality; on the contrary, he means religion as such fulfills a necessary function. As far as its ‘ground’ is concerned, morality is ‘self-suffi­cient’: all we need is our own (human) practical reason. But as far as its ‘consequence’ is concerned, we must look beyond mere morality in hopes of finding some third thing to bridge the gap between the theoretical and the practical. That ‘third thing’, in Kt8, is religion.

       The common view that for Kant true religion is entirely humanistic (an­thropocentric) [see I.3] neglects the fact that in this passage he says moral­ity necessarily ‘extends itself’, or points beyond itself, to the idea of a God. The words ‘final end (of creation)’ undoubtedly refer to humanity.[11] However, the second point arising out of this passage is that an entirely anthropocentric philosophy is not the type that best serves the interests of humanity. Rather, the purpose of morality (which is anthropocentric) will best be fulfilled by viewing morality in terms of something outside mankind. Within Kant’s moral system, the idea of God had to be introduced as a postulate just to conceive of the possibility of reaching the goal of establishing the highest good. Now he is saying the only way morality can fulfill its purpose is to regard this possibility (i.e., the postulate of the existence of God) as an actuality. In other words, only if we treat our moral experience as if it were guided by a divine Being who shares with us a common goal do we have any hope of completing the task morality sets for us. This extension of religion beyond morality into the realm of empirical reality is implied when Kant says [Kt35:(81)]: ‘Religion and morality go hand in hand.... Morality as such is ideal, but religion imbues it with vigour, beauty, and reality.’

       Once the teleological function of Kt8 is fully appreciated, a third point can be drawn out of the passage quoted from the first Preface: the function of Kt8 in Kant’s philosophical System is related most closely to the function of the third Critique (viz., to synthesize the theoretical and practical aspects of the first two Critiques), not to that of the second. The relationships between the stand­points of the three Critiques can be mapped onto a 1SLR triangle [see Fig. III.2]. The traditional reductionistic interpretation of Kt8 identifies its stand­point with that of Kt4. This is, admittedly, consistent with the emphasis through­out Kt8 on the priority of practical over theoretical reason.[12] Yet, as we shall see in

      

 

Figure VI.1: The Standpoints of the Three Critiques

 

Parts Three and Four, Kant is also very concerned with assessing the validity of religious experience in general, and with determining the extent to which various kinds of historical faith can serve as adequate vehicles for pure religion.

In both cases, he attempts to synthesize practical and theoretical stand­points—a function associated most closely with the judicial standpoint.[13] His philosophy of religion remains ‘within the bounds of bare reason’ only in the sense that this synthesis always gives primacy to the practical in relation to the theoretical. But this is equally true of all three Critiques! If we see Kt8 as an attempt to show how in the universal experience of religion the practical and theoretical standpoints are inextricably intertwined (as was already briefly sug­gested in KSP1:III.4 [s.e. Fig. III.9]), then it becomes clear that Kt8 not only plays a constitutive role in Kant’s System of Perspectives, but, given its more system­atic organization [see e.g., Figs. VII.7-8, below], could have effectively replaced Kt7 as a Critique of Religious Judgment.[14]

       This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that both Kt8 and Kt7 try to answer the third in a set of questions that Kant says defines ‘[a]ll the interests of my reason’: the first two questions, ‘What can I know?’ and ‘What ought I to do?’, are synthesized by the third, ‘What may I hope?’[15] Indeed, I believe part of Kant’s reason for writing Kt8 when he did was that he realized Kt7, published three years earlier, does not provide a sufficient answer to the question of human hope. The questions relating to human hope are asso­ciated much more naturally with religion than with aesthetics or teleology (the subjects of Kt7). Moreover, as we shall see in Chapter VII, Kt8 fits more closely than the third Critique does into the systematic patterns established in the first two Cri­tiques [cf. KSP1:IX.1,4]—yet another good reason for regard­ing Kt8 as intimately bound up with the Critical wing of his System.

       A careful examination of Kant’s various definitions of religion will not only support the above suggestion as to the proper place of Kt8 in Kant’s Sys­tem, but will provide the context for a proper understanding of Kant’s ‘official’ definition in Kt8. In his Lectures on Education Kant defines religion as ‘the [moral] law in us, so far as it is imprinted upon us by a legislator and a judge; it is morality applied to the knowledge of God [i.e., to theology].’[16] Converse­ly, he claims elsewhere that ‘religion is nothing but the application of theology to morality’ [Kt26:997(26)]. These two statements would contradict each other for anyone who views reli­gion as simply identical to, or a sub-category of, moral­ity. For Kant, though, the statements are actually suggesting that morality and theology are the two complementary opposites which, when combined in a synthetic unity, give rise to religion. This is why Kant can say both that ‘moral­ity leads inevitably to re­ligion’ [Kt8:8n(7n)] and that ‘theology also leads direct­ly to religion’:[17] each leads to religion, because each is incomplete on its own, just as each of the first two Critiques can be said to lead to the third Cri­tique. The religion towards which they lead must therefore clothe the ‘bare’ body of pure moral religion with some theoretical clothing, in the form of an ‘historical’ or ‘revealed’ religion, also called an ‘ecclesiastical faith’ [see e.g., Kt8:102-3 (94),162(151)]. A real (i.e., empirical) religion that can do this with­out distort­ing the priority of the ‘pure religious faith’ at its core can qualify for what Kant calls ‘the universal religion of mankind’ [Kt8:155(143)]. (I shall argue in Chapter VIII that Kant viewed Christianity as the prime example of the latter.)

       If we turn now to Kant’s standard definition of religion, the error lying behind the strict reductionist interpretation can easily be exposed. The fact that he intends his definition to extend morality beyond its own boundaries to the­ology, and then beyond both to a new, distinctively religious standpoint, be­comes especially obvious if we look at the context in which Kant proposes his definition, where it is used to clarify the difference between revealed and natural reli­gion:

 

Religion is (subjectively regarded) the recognition of all duties as divine com­mands.[18] That religion in which I must know in advance that something is a divine command in order to recognize it as my duty, is the revealed religion ...; in con­trast, that religion in which I must first know that something is my duty before I can accept it as a divine injunction is the natural religion. [Kt8:153-4(142-3)]

 

In revealed religion, then, morality conforms to theology, while in natural reli­gion theology conforms to morality [see Kt7:460 and Kt39:477(184)]. Kant goes on to distinguish between two types of natural religion, only the first of which would be reductionist in the strict sense. He contrasts the ‘naturalist’, who ‘denies the reality of all supernatural divine revelation’ with the ‘pure rational­ist’, who ‘recognizes revelation, but asserts that to know and accept it as real is not a necessary requisite to religion’ [Kt8:154-5(143)].

       Although in the first paragraph of this section [Kt8:153-5(142-3)] Kant never advocates any of these views, in the next paragraph he describes the po­sition of the pure rationalist (which does not entail eliminative reductionism) in a way that clearly implies his support for it. The pure rationalist, it seems, has read the first Critique! For he ‘must ... restrict himself within the limits of hu­man insight’, yet without dogmatising, as does the naturalist (and the strict re­ductionist). He then contrasts his position[19] with ‘pure supernaturalism’, which tends towards a rather different form of strict reductionism: its proponent ‘holds that belief in [revelation] is necessary to the universal religion’, because human duties are nothing but God’s revealed will. For Kant, ‘the question at is­sue’ is whether the pure rationalist or the pure supernaturalist position is cor­rect—i.e., whether divine revelation is to be regarded ‘as necessary and sufficient, or as merely inciden­tal, to the unique true religion.’[20]

       After making this ‘subjective’ distinction between different ways of con­ceiving of the ‘inner possibility’ of religion, Kant makes another, ‘objective’ distinction, in terms of the ‘characteristics [of a religion] which make it capable of being shared widely with others’ [Kt8:155(143)]. The main characteristic of ‘the natural religion’ is that ‘(once it has arisen) everyone can be convinced [of its truth] through his own reason’, whereas that of ‘a learned religion’ is that ‘one can convince others only through the agency of learning (in and through which they must be guided).’ Only the former can qualify as ‘the universal religion’, because only it can be spread to everyone, regardless of educational status. He points out, however, that a religion such as Christianity might be ‘objectively a natural religion, though subjectively one that has been revealed’[21] —a claim we shall examine more fully in Chapter VIII.

       Seen in its proper context, Kant’s definition of religion suggests the following 1SLR between theology, morality, and religion:

 

                                                                       

 

Figure VI.2: Theology, Morality, and Religion

 

A ‘revealed’ religion is one that takes theology (or some form of revelation) as its sole basis, rejecting the need for any special aid from reason. A ‘natural’ religion takes morality (or some manifestation of reason) as its sole basis, rejecting the need for any special aid from revelation. In truly Critical fashion, Kant rejects both extremes (the former being too dogmatic, the latter being too skeptical) in favor of a more moderate view that combines them, forming the idea of an empirical religion that accepts the possibility of both natural reli­gion (objectively) and revealed religion (subjectively). Only if objective priority is given to the former (i.e., only if it is not regarded as a ‘learned’ religion) can an empiri­cal religion be considered as a candidate for a truly universal religion.

       Kant lends further support to this interpretation in Kt35:(83-4) when he explains that ‘supernatural religion is not opposed to natural religion, but com­pletes it. Natural religion is true but incomplete.’ It is incomplete because ‘true religion’, though essentially inner, always involves some outward expression:

 

... there is no such thing as an outer religion. All [true] religion is entirely a matter of disposition; all outward action is either a means to or an expression of the reli­gion within us: no outward act can be a religious act; acts of religion are within us, because true religion is purely a matter of disposition. [(82-83), e.a.]

 

Kant is here emphasizing the radically pure, or transcendental character of his special Critical Perspective on religion: just as Kt1 (sys­temt) lays the tran­scen­dental foundation for empirical knowledge and Kt4 (sys­temp) lays the transcen­dental foundation for moral action, so also Kt8 (sys­temr) lays the transcen­dental foundation for real (empirical) religion. However, the fact that the inner dis­po­sition must be primary does not mean it can stand on its own. On the contrary, only an empirical religion that combines the outer and the inner in the proper way can be universal. Accordingly, Kant leaves no doubt as to his position on the inadequacy of a merely inner religion [Kt35:(102)]:

 

A pure religion ... consist[s] solely in dispositions which are directed towards God and imply morality. A mixed religion, in so far as it appeals to the senses, is one which is merely a means to morality. But as man is sensuous and the religious ap­peal to the senses has its uses, it can be said that man can have no pure religion.

 

This makes it easier to understand why, in spite of his emphasis on the primacy of true ‘inner’ reli­gion, Kant does not use the phrase ‘reinen Vernunft’ in the title of Kt8.

       Once Kant’s perspectival distinction between theology, morality, and reli­gion is clearly understood, his insistence that morality is the primary basis of religion, while theology is secondary, can be recognized as a rather straight­for­ward application of his general insistence on the ‘primacy of practical reason’: in Kant’s System practical action always takes precedence over theoret­ical beliefs [see Kt4:119-21]. This is why he rejects all theoretical arguments for the existence of God, yet claims his moral argument is ‘the only one needful for religion’ [Kt7:474], so that ‘the only theology of reason which is possible is one that is based upon moral laws’ [664]. However, it is a grave mistake to treat Kant’s moral argument for the existence of God as part of his theory of religion, as is so often done by those who view the latter as a mere footnote to his moral philosophy [see notes VI.2-5]. Not only does he never repeat the moral argument as such in Kt8, but as we shall see, he supplies new arguments that go beyond the mere postulate of God, guaranteed by the former. The faith that is the proper domain of theology is added to the knowledge that arises out of our moral nature in order to give rise to religion, in which the real­ity of God plays a role it never could in the moral system on its own. And the result is that the ultimate fulfillment of the moral law itself becomes possible: ‘In religion all our morality ought to reach its fulfilment in respect of its object’ [Kt35:(78-9)].

       This perspectival interpretation of Kant’s definition of religion puts it in a new light. When Kant says religion is the recognition of duties as divine com­mands, he is not secretly thinking: ‘But we enlightened folk all know that they are actually nothing but human duties in disguise.’ Rather, he is implying that the only way to make sense out of the universal human experience of inwardly compelling duty, and the only way to imagine how the enormous task it pre­sents to us can be fulfilled, given the factual reality of ‘radical evil in human nature’ [Kt8:19-44(15-39)], is to view these duties as if they are commanded by God (though, of course, their ultimate source can never be a matter of theoretical knowledge). This is why he says we must view our duties as divine (not just human) commands: we must view them as being connected (via the moral law within us) to a higher Power outside us (though not outside reason, lest they be heteronomous) or we will never be able to achieve their fulfillment. This fulfillment, according to Kant, is the heart and the hope of true religion.[22]

 

3. A Preview of Kant’s System of Religion

       If the foregoing interpretation is correct, then the usual assumption, that Kt8 simply restates and expands the essentials of Kant’s theory of morality in Kt4, is profoundly mistaken. Instead, Kt8 ought to be viewed as it­self a transcendental Critique of Religion [see note VI.14]—i.e., as an attempt to delin­eate the boundary between true religion and false religion by setting forth the necessary conditions for the possibility of religious experience. And this is, in­deed, precisely what Kant does. When he explains this in the Preface to the second edition of Kt8, he adds that his experiment will actually be twofold: first, to discover the rational conditions for the possibility of religion; and sec­ond, to test one particular religious faith, viz., Christianity, to see how closely it conforms to these conditions.[23] Chapters VII and VIII will examine and assess the success of these two experiments in turn. As a final preparation for our detailed analysis of Kt8, though, let us take a general look at the book’s overall structure.[24] This will enable us to determine more precisely in VI.4 the extent to which Kant’s rational system of religion is or is not re­ductive.

       Kt8 is divided into four ‘Books’, each of which develops one ‘stage’ (as I call it) in Kant’s systematic exposition of the nature of religion. The pri­mary task of the first stage is to answer the question: Is human nature originally good or evil? Kant’s answer is (as usual) that it depends on what perspective the questioner adopts. If the question refers to the potential that resides in every human being as a ‘living’ (animal), ‘rational’ (human), and ‘accountable’ (per­sonal) being, then we must regard human nature as originally good, be­cause these characteristics naturally ‘enjoin the observance of the [moral] law’ [Kt8: 26-8(21-3)]. However, if the question refers to the actual state of every human person in their first (and subsequent) moral act(s), then we cannot avoid the conclusion that an original (‘radical’) evil exists in human nature. This con­clusion is necessary not only if we base our judgment on ‘what we know of man through experience’ [32(27)]; in addition, ‘it must be appre­hended a priori through the concept of evil’ [35(31)]. Thus, Kant concludes, ‘we may presup­pose evil to be subjectively necessary to every man, even the best’ [32(27)].

       Kant’s argument in stage one has not always been appreciated by his crit­ics, who would rather gloss over it in order to emphasize the ‘good bits’ (i.e., Kant’s stress on moral goodness).[25] Yet this two-sided answer to the question of human nature is as crucial to Kant’s theory of religion as freedom is to his theory of morality, and as time and space are to his theory of knowledge. Kant is argu­ing, as we shall see in VII.2-3, that religion itself would not be possible if it were not true that human nature contains within it an intrinsically good pur­pose, and that the same human nature is nevertheless infected with an irre­sistible tendency towards evil. This tension sets the problem that all religion tries to solve; so without these two condi­tions, religion would never have ap­peared. Morality alone is insufficient because evil is inevitable for every human being. If evil were not inevitable, then we could realize the goal of be­coming well-pleasing to God merely by remaining in the pure (moral) part of Kant’s System. But in his religious system Kant insists right at the outset that we must recognize our inability to reach the goal in this way: we need more than mere morality, because nobody is perfect. We are all corrupted by radical evil.

       The second stage in Kant’s religious system responds to the initial limiting conditions set out in stage one by examining ‘the conflict of the good with the evil principle for sovereignty over man’ [Kt8:57(50)]. The question Kant is trying to answer in Book Two is: How can an evil person become good? The answer interpreters have traditionally assumed Kant to be giving is that a person becomes good by acting in a good way, by obeying the moral law. This, once again, is a subtle misconstrual of the solution Kant actually offers. How does an evil heart become a good heart? Kant’s initial answer is:

 

For despite the fall, the injunction that we ought to become better men resounds unabatedly in our souls; hence this must be within our power, even though what we are able to do is in itself inadequate and though we thereby only render ourselves susceptible of higher, and for us inscrutable, assistance.... But if a man is to become not merely legally, but morally, a good man (pleasing to God), ... this cannot be brought about through gradual reformation so long as the basis of the maxims [i.e., the ‘heart’] remains impure, but must be effected through a revolution in the man’s disposition ... [Kt8:45-7(40-3)].

 

       Kant is here making two main points. The first is that, no matter how good we are, we cannot be good enough to please God (i.e., to fulfill the moral law) in every one of our actions. ‘What we are able to do is in itself inadequate’! Then what is the importance of morality at all? Kant says that by acting morally we render ourselves susceptible of ‘higher and, for us [i.e., for bare reason] inscrutable assistance’. Another (more conventionally religious) way of saying the same thing is that grace is a necessary condition of becoming good. Kant supports this position explicitly in Kt8:75-6(70):[26]

 

Here, then, is that surplus ... over and above the profit from good works, and it is itself a profit which is reckoned to us by grace. That what in our earthly life ... is ever only a becoming (namely, becoming a man well-pleasing to God) should be credited to us exactly as if we were already in full possession of it—to this we have no legal claim ... Thus the decree is always one of grace alone ...

 

Such a manifestation of grace occurs as a part of the conversion experience of the religious believer: even though we are not fully good, we are regarded as good by God. Kant almost seems to be defending the Lutheran position that salvation is by grace alone, not by works! This is slightly misleading, how­ever, because he does not actually say ‘not by works’; rather, he says both works and grace are necessary. Good works are necessary from the moral stand­point of practical reason; and grace is necessary from the nonmoral standpoint of theoretical reason. Kant’s view is that, if salvation is going to hap­pen, both of these requirements must be met.

       The question this raises is: What is the proper order? From one point of view, grace must come first, because there is no way a person can erase the evil deeds he or she has already done, and the first moral (i.e., freely chosen) action performed by every person is evil [see notes VIII.16,17]. God must take the initiative. But how does this happen? Kant says bare reason cannot answer this question. All we can do is recognize the space left open by reason, which needs to be filled. Filling this space is not an optional extra, intended only for those who need a crutch; rather, it must be filled in some way by God’s grace if a person is to become well-pleasing to God. Naked reason cannot tell us exactly how this will happen. Only faith, as a complement to the inadequacy of our theoretical reason, can pave the way for such a disclosure.

       Kant’s theory of this ‘space’ is expressed primarily in terms of what he calls the ‘archetype of perfect humanity’. The grace of God, from the point of view of bare reason, can only be regarded as an archetype. By ‘archetype’ Kant means every human being possesses, as it were, an inner ‘space’, ready and waiting to be filled by the grace of God. But nothing in our reason can guarantee the ac­tual filling of that space. The problem, Kant says, is that we are not able to see clearly into the depths of the human heart—not even our own heart. So there is no way we can know for sure whether or not God has actually manifested his grace to us, or whether we have accepted it completely [see e.g., Kt8:51(46),67-9(61-2)]. We cannot tell for sure whether the ‘space’ we have in our reason has actually been filled. So what can we do? Kant says what we must do is to adopt what he calls ‘practical faith’.

       In a nutshell, Kant’s notion of practical faith says this: Try your best, and trust that God will do the rest. That is, do your moral duty as often as you can, follow the moral law in your heart, but never fool yourself into believing that this alone will save you, because you will always fall short. Kant stresses this idea time after time;[27] and yet, whenever he says it, strict reductionist inter­preters sweep his comments off to one side and surmise ‘Well, he must have been trying to please the governmental authorities of the established church, who were threatening to censor his work.[28] He couldn’t have believed that!’ Yet this kind of selective interpretation is unjustified, particularly at this point, where he is expounding the very heart of his entire philosophical System.

       We can therefore summarize Kant’s argument in stage two as follows. Kant is saying that, although we can never make ourselves worthy to be ac­cepted by God, we can make ourselves worthy to be made acceptable by God. This is the proper relationship, according to Kant, between good works and grace.[29] Doing good works—trying to live a good life—is the rational basis upon which we can conceive of ourselves as having received God’s grace. For our moral action is based on the same disposition through which we open our­selves up to the possibility of having our immoral deeds covered up by God.

       Up to this point Kant’s religious system has been concerned only with the salvation of the individual believer. But in stage three he argues that ‘the victory of the good over the evil principle, and the founding of a kingdom of God on earth’ [Kt8:93(85)] can occur only in the context of a community. Therefore, the questions to be answered in Book Three all revolve around the issue of the nature and justification of such a community, regarded as a neces­sarily religious institution. Why do we need such a community? Because when a converted person lives in close proximity to other people—even if these oth­ers are also trying to live good lives—they will inevitably have a corrupting in­fluence on each other. The radical evil in their nature as human beings will still corrupt the goodness of the individual’s deeds, giving rise to inter-personal conflicts such as jealousy, selfishness, etc. [Kt8:93-4(85-6)]. For this reason, people seeking to live a good life need to join together in the form of what Kant calls an ‘ethical commonwealth’. In other words, we need to come together and make an agreement to cooperate, based on moral laws [95-8(87-9)].

       The strict reductionist interpretation of Kant stops at this point: it says the ethical commonwealth is Kant’s description of how the unity of pure moral re­ligion can come about. But Kant himself actually says the ethical common­wealth on its own is an insufficient basis for the realization of true religion. Why? Because the people who unite together in this way must work according to the additional assumption that the same Being, or the same transcendent Power, is at the root of their internally prescribed moral commands. In other words, they must believe there is a God who guides all the members of such a group in harmony with each other. On the basis of this argument (to be exam­ined in more detail in VII.3.A), Kant concludes that the ethical commonwealth will be effective only when it is viewed as an invisible ‘People of God’ who come together un­der the idea of a church. Each member can then be regarded as receiving in his or her own heart individual guidance from God. Ultimately, the level of cooperation between the people joined together in such a community will therefore be determined by the extent to which each person receives guid­ance from the same divine Being. Yet this need to rely on God for the final realization of the highest human good does not release human beings from re­sponsibility. On the contrary, as we shall see in VII.3.A, Kant stresses that the true church must have a definite (archetypal) form through human organization.

       Kant concludes his system of religion in stage four by asking how we can determine whether or not a particular aspect of an empirical religion is genuine. In order to distinguish between false religion and true religion, he offers the following principle:

 

I take the following proposition to be a principle requiring no proof: Whatever, over and above good life-conduct, man fancies that he can do to become well-pleas­ing to God is mere religious illusion and pseudo-service of God. I say, what man believes that he can do; for here it is not denied that beyond all that we can do there may be something in the mysteries of the highest wisdom that God alone can do to transform us into men well-pleasing to Him.... But is there not also perhaps a dizzying illusion of virtue ...? No! The disposition of virtue occupies itself with something real which of itself is well-pleasing to God and which harmonizes with the world’s highest good. True, an illusion of self-sufficiency may attach itself thereto, an illusion of regarding oneself as measuring up to the idea of one’s holy duty; but this is merely contingent. [Kt8:170-3(158-161)]

 

       Passages such as this have typically been interpreted along the lines of strict (eliminative) reductionism: Kant is believed to be saying that nothing be­sides morality counts, so we can throw away everything else. But this is not what he says! On the contrary, he explicitly states that we can never hope to behave well enough to ‘measure up’ completely to the required standard. He is arguing that anything completely detached from morality is not part of true re­ligion. Nevertheless, elsewhere in Book IV he explains that there is a proper place for nonmoral aspects of religion, for aspects of our empirical religion that are accepted by faith, but are not in themselves morally good or bad. These do have   a proper place as long as we keep them attached to morality, as long as there is a definite connection between such nonmoral religious activities or be­liefs and the moral core of religion. Thus Kant’s principle entails that nonmoral religious activity can be a legitimate part of the true (universal) religion only if it serves as a means for deepening or quickening a person’s moral dis­position.

       The error Kant’s principle is guarding against is not that of admit­ting non­moral aspects into an empirical religion; rather it is that of reversing the priority of the moral over the nonmoral, by viewing the latter not merely as the means to a moral end, but as themselves the objective condition for God’s ac­ceptance.

 

Hence whoever assigns priority to obedience to statutory laws, requiring a revela­tion, as being necessary to religion, and regards this obedience not merely as a means to the moral disposition but as the objective condition of becoming imme­diately well-pleasing to God, and whoever thus places endeavor toward a good course of life below this historical faith (instead of requiring the latter, which can be well-pleasing to God only conditionally, to adapt itself to the former, which alone is intrinsically well-pleasing to Him)—whoever does this transforms the ser­vice of God into a mere fetishism and practises a pseudo-service which is subver­sive to all endeavors toward true religion. So much depends, when we wish to unite two good things, upon the order in which they are united! True enlighten­ment lies in this very distinction; therein the service of God becomes first and foremost a free and hence a moral service. [Kt8:178-9(166-7)]

 

Here Kant is not equating nonmoral activities to false religion, and moral ac­tivities to true religion, as the strict reductionist interpretation would have it. Rather, he is describing true religion as the combination of these two elements in their proper order. From our point of view as human beings, morality is the first basis, the foundation of our building of religion, whereas faith and non­moral religious activities constitute the building itself. False religion is the belief that some theoretical (i.e., nonmoral) belief or idea is the basis, the founda­tion, and that morality just comes as an extra, secondary element—or maybe even not at all. But if the priorities are right, then both the moral and the nonmoral can cooperate as proper elements in true religion.

 

4. Raising Morality to the Status of Religion

       This more balanced way of interpreting Kant’s intentions provides a good basis for making an accurate initial evaluation of the extent to which his two experiments succeed. We shall see in the next two chapters that both are far more successful than strict reductionists would lead us to believe. For the answers Kant gives to the wide range of questions oc­cupying his attention in Kt8 go far beyond the simple idea that religion is just morality in disguise.

       A brief look at three issues of special importance can serve as a tantalizing preview of the implications the perspectival interpretation of Kant’s Critical theology given here in Part Two has for Kant’s philosophy of religion. Kant’s views concerning the divinity of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, and the authority of the Bible as a divine revelation have typically been taken to be contrary, if not hostile, to the traditional Christian doctrines. Although Kant certainly does not defend the orthodox views, the strict reductionist interpretation has blinded many readers to the fact that he also does not deny the validity of such doctrines, but rather offers a new, more moderate explanation of their validity. In each case, his explanations of such doctrines promote (what I shall call) a ‘liberating conservatism’ and ‘conserving liberalism’ (in opposition of the usual extremes of an exclusively conservative or liberal interpretation of Christian doctrine) [see VIII.4].

       A careful examination of the first issue reveals that Kant never denies Jesus’ divinity [see AVI.2]. On the contrary, he explicitly requires that this question be left open, to be decided by faith, not bare reason [Kt8:63-4(57-8)]; nevertheless, he clearly outlines a ‘space’ for such a divine nature in his theory of the ‘personified idea [i.e. the ‘archetype’] of the good principle’ in all human persons [60-2(57-8)], and he even hints that Jesus’ divinity could be inter­preted in terms of his ‘disposition’, in which ‘the ideal of goodness’ was ‘displayed incarnate’ [65-6(59); s.a. 128-9(119-20)]. Kant’s criticism of the traditional view is di­rected primarily to those who emphasize Jesus’ divinity to such an extent that his humanity (and thus his ability to serve as an example to all human beings) is ne­glected [63-4(57-8)]; but he also guards against the opposite extreme of dog­matically denying Jesus’ divinity altogether.

       Likewise, Kant never claims that prayer is merely an ineffective illusion that should be eliminated from true religion.[30] On the contrary, he insists that the ‘spirit’ of prayer lies at the very heart of all true religion; for prayer serves to ‘fan into flame the cinders of morality in the inner recesses of the heart’ [Kt35:(99)]. His criticism of prayer as it is commonly practiced is that an emphasis on the ‘letter’ (i.e., on the words that are the uttered) can often lead a person to hold the false belief that the uttering of such words is, in itself, pleasing to God [Kt8:194-8(182-6)]. All nonmoral religious activities are treated in a similar way: they lead to false religion only if regarded as a direct way of serving God [103-6(94-7)]; if they are treated as an indirect type of ser­vice, intended ‘to induce in us a moral disposition’ [Kt35:(99)], then they are not only valid, but can be vital to true religion [Kt8:192(180-1)]. The profound implications of this interpretive principle for understanding the role of nonmoral religious activities is brought out most fully in Appendix VIII, where the specific issue of prayer is examined in great detail.

       Finally, Kant never intends to deny the reliability of the Bible as a divinely revealed guideline for the faith and practice of the true church.[31] On the con­trary, he stresses that some text is necessary, and that this text (i.e., the Bible) has proven its value by repeatedly serving as a vehicle for awakening people to true religion [Kt8:106-7(97-8)]; moreover, he carefully explains how its moral content can assure us of its divinely revealed character [112(102-3)]. His criti­cism of the common belief in divine revelation is directed mainly against those who regard rational belief in the theology contained in a particular book as the necessary condition for pleasing God, so that ‘learning’ and ‘scholarship’, rather than practical faith and good life-conduct, inevitably come to be regarded as the most important elements in religion [112-4(103-5)]. Although our more ex­haustive study of the way Kant defends this and each of the above doctrines will reveal some clear differences between his views and the views of both conservative and liberal theologians [see VIII.2.B-3.B], his position is never­theless remarkably compatible with that of many open-minded Christians.

       Our general overview of Kt8 has given us plenty of evidence for concluding that Kant does insist on maintaining a necessary connection between moral­ity and religion, so in this loose, explanatory sense, he does indeed reduce everything religious to the level of morality. In other words, morality clearly is for Kant the pure (and hence, necessary) core of all true religion. But as we have seen throughout this chapter, this is because he recognizes that only if morality is raised to the status of religion will it be able to fulfill its own goals! Far from requiring the elimination of all nonmoral elements, Kant’s approach rather guarantees their potential value by rooting them in the only human soil capable of enabling nonmoral religious beliefs and practices to grow and flour­ish. In the eliminative sense, then, MacKin­non is right to say in Ma75:132 that ‘Kant’s philosophy of religion is very far from reductionist.’

       My strategy in answering the question posed at the outset of this chapter (viz., ‘does Kant reduce theology and religion to morality?’) has been to focus primarily on religion. Morality enables us to explain religion, but not to elimi­nate it. As we saw in VI.2, religion for Kant is the synthesis of morality and theology. With this in mind, we can readily apply the same reasoning to Kant’s view of theology. Like morality, theology can have an explanatory relation to religion, but never to the point of eliminating it. In relation to morality, theol­ogy likewise has a clearly secondary status. Yet even here we cannot say Kant in­tends to eliminate all theology, merely replacing it with morality. For if theol­ogy were eliminated, then religion itself (the synthesis of morality and theol­ogy) would be rendered impossible. Moreover, we have seen throughout Part Two that Kant himself develops quite an elaborate theology of his own—hardly what we would expect from someone who was trying to eliminate or destroy all theology!

       Far from eliminating all religion and theology, Kant’s views on the central role of morality in these disciplines are so affirming that they could be com­pared with those of the biblical writers themselves, thus giving rise to another, parallel question: Did Jesus and the writers of the Bible reduce religion (or theology) to morality? A definitive answer to this question is, of course, beyond the scope of this book. Nevertheless, as we shall see in more detail in Chapters VIII and IX, numerous aspects of Kant’s theory have close parallels in Christianity. For now, it will therefore suffice to point out, as an example, that Kant’s view of religion is essentially the same as that of the prophet who asks:[32]

 

 

With what shall I come to the Lord and bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the Lord take de­light in thousands of rams, in ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my first-born for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

 

  [1].  I am grateful to an anonymous Kant-Studien referee for suggesting the terms ‘explanatory’ and ‘eliminative’, and for offering numerous criticisms of a previous version of this chapter, without which the present version would be considerably less clear.

  [2].  Ca81:381-2,385, e.a. Webb expresses the same idea more succinctly when he describes Kant’s theory of religion as ‘an appendix to Ethics’ [We26:62].

  [3].  Wa67:322. Earlier Walsh had already tacitly bought into the reductionist interpretation by interpreting Kant as holding that ‘[r]eligious discourse is legitimate and meaningful because it is internal to moral discourse’ [Wa63a:282]. But as we shall see in VII.1, Kant puts these two in the opposite order [s.e. Fig. VII.1]: moral discourse is and must be internal to religious discourse in order for the latter to be rationally justifiable. Walsh seems to have been misled by the fact that the postulates are internal to Kant’s moral system; but on their own they do not constitute ‘religious discourse’. As we shall see below, religious discourse happens only when we step outside the realm of the explicitly moral and view our moral disposition from the perspective of divine command.

  [4].  Vo88:179. Ironically, Vossenkuhl expresses serious doubts as to whether Kant really succeeds in fulfilling this aim, yet never considers the possibility that this may not have been his aim at all!

  [5].  Ed79:46, e.a; s.a. Mi89:259. Edwards bases his reductionist summary of Kant’s position only on the title of Kt8 and on Kant’s definition of religion. He assumes Kant ‘shared with the rational­ists of his century the conviction that reason alone is sufficient for all religious knowledge’; so he infers that, because Kant regards morality as ‘the essence of “true religion”’, it must also be true that ‘nothing else really matters’ for Kant [Ed79:46]. As a result, he concludes his discussion with a (completely unjustified) summary of Kant’s view, implying it should be relegated to the scrap heap: ‘With a mere definition of religion Kant believes he has shown that no “true religion” contains a belief that God really exists ..., that no “true religion” contains a reliable and self-au­thenticating revelation, and that no “true religion” makes a place for prayer, ritual, or any other expression of unique duties to God’ [52]. Not only does Edwards fail to recognize that Kant does preserve a neces­sary space for such elements in all true religion [see Part Three], but he also completely ignores the fact that Kant supports each of his claims with arguments (not mere definitions) [see note VI.22].

                  Another typical example of a blatantly reductionist interpretation of Kant’s theory of reli­gion can be found in Kw83:95-118. Kwan repeatedly adds words like ‘nothing but’, ‘only’, or ‘just’ to Kant’s own words to make them appear to defend eliminative reductionism [s.e. 110-1], when nothing in Kant’s text indicates that this is his intention. Kwan sets up an absolute dichotomy between an historical fact and its symbolic meaning, as if no event could be both at once! Thus, in discussing the ‘symbolic meaning’ of Kant’s idea of ‘Christus’, he says ‘God or Christus ... is just a human fiction, a projection, an idea or an Ideal’ [111]. He concludes by saying that for Kant ‘No God will tell us if we are really on our way toward a pure rational faith ... Only the human conscience’ [112]. But this misses Kant’s point, which, as we shall see, is that if God tells us anything, it must be through (or at least, consistent with) such rational channels as the conscience.

                  Smart likewise finds fault with ‘Kant’s exposition of reli­gion’ on the grounds that ‘in essence [Kant] reduces [religion] to morality’ [Sm69:5.15]. Summarizing this common (mis)interpretation of Kant’s philosophy of religion, Smart later claims [5.37] that ‘Kant, in taking it for granted that the First Cause lies beyond all possible experience, ruled out the validity of revelatory experience. For him, science and morality exhausted the avenues of knowledge: there is no ‘third’ way, the way of religion as such.’ Yet, Kant’s general philosophical method was always to search for just such a third way [see II.2], and as we shall see in this chapter, his theory of religion was no exception. Moreover, we shall see in X.2 that Kant did not rule out altogether the possibility of experiencing God, but only that such an experience can ever attain the status of ‘experience’ in the technical theoretical sense of ‘empirical knowledge’ [see KSP1:IV.3 and VII.3.A].

  [6].  One notable exception is Rossi, who says [Ro89:369] ‘Kant ... does not hold that religion is either identical with or reducible to morality.’ But he does not defend or develop this view in detail. Moreover, a few years later he explicitly defends a form of eliminative reductionism [Ro93:57]: ‘The “moral” ... determines the function of religion ... [I]t is only a short step to religion’s marginaliza­tion and eventual reductive elimination; ... religion will become increasingly periph­eral ... and will ... find itself being reductively purified or transformed into (a form of) morality.’ But as we shall see, this is a fundamental misuse of Kant’s meaning of the term ‘religion’. Had Rossi written this about ‘historical faith’, then his comment would be accurate. But for Kant, religion—and that means morality interpreted as God-given (not morality in and of itself)—is destined to be­come more and more central to human culture and to the fulfillment of morality’s true purpose, not more and more peripheral [see Pa94b and KSP4]. Fortunately, Rossi admits that certain ‘elements of Kant’s thought ... run counter to such a reductive program for religion’ [Ro93:57], and concludes by suggesting we reconsider the appropriateness of the reductive paradigm [58].

                  McCarthy [Mc86:96] agrees that ‘religion in the end’ is not ‘totally reduced to morality’ by Kant [s.a. 90-1]; as we shall see, ‘his definition of religion ... points beyond morality to include the recognition of ... the divine being ... Thus Kant’s definition of religion really points to an essential difference between morality and religion, namely, God-consciousness ...’.

  [7].  Kt2:352. The English words ‘limit’ and ‘boundary’ have similar connotations, especially in light of the mathematical use of the word ‘limit’. When a mathematical function approaches its limit, there is no point in asking (absurdly) how that function operates on the ‘other side’ of its limit. As far as the function is concerned, there simply is no other side.

  [8].  Kant’s distinction between the ‘natural’ and the ‘naturalistic’ in Kt65:44-5 likewise implies that he views Christianity as a religion based in reason, yet not limited to reason.

  [9].  In the Preface to their translation, Greene and Hudson do refer to the fact that John Richardson’s 1799 English translation of Kt8 uses ‘Naked Reason’ in the title [GH34:cxxxv]. Richardson’s full title is ‘The Religion within the Sphere of Naked Reason’.

[10].    Another possibility would be ‘unaided’, since ‘bloßen Vernunft’ does indicate that Kant wishes to examine the rational nature of religion unaided by divine revelation. However, this choice is less literal, and considerably less colorful than ‘bare’. Kant was very fond of such, often rather fanciful, metaphors, so a good translation should convey such nuances as faithfully as possible.

[11].    In Kt7:435, Kant says ‘man is the final end of creation.’

[12].    For example, Kant says in Kt8:12(11) that the ‘pure rational system of religion ..., though not from the theoretical standpoint ... may yet, from the morally practical standpoint, be self-sufficient and adequate for genuine religion, which, indeed, as a rational concept a priori (remaining after everything empirical has been taken away), obtains only from this [practical] standpoint.’ True enough, pure religion does in a sense correspond to the practical standpoint in Figure VI.1; but what happens when ‘everything empirical’ is added again, as Kant clearly intends it to be in systemr?

                  Along these lines Webb lists three ‘truths which lie at the heart of Kant’s thought’ on religion: (1) ‘the implicit rationality of Religion’ [We26:202]; (2) ‘the implicitly ethical character of Religion’ [205]; and (3) ‘the ethical or ethically rational character of the Christian religion, as the feature distinctive of it among the religions of the world’ [206]. While these are all true of systemr, they do not necessarily indicate that it should be merely identified with systemp.

[13].    See KSP1:IX.1 and note I.17, above. Michalson, neglecting the perspectival nature of Kant’s philosophy, thereby blinds himself to the many synthetic elements in Kant’s System, leading him to claim that ‘Kant’s transcendental idealism has no systematic way of integrating the moral and the temporal’ [Mi89:263]. By contrast, Davidovich bases the whole approach of her recent book on the sort of assumption I am making, that these synthetic elements represent the System’s true goal: ‘Kant’s search for unity culminates in religion’ [Da93b:69]. ‘The problem of the unity of Reason’, as she puts it [55], ‘finds its solution in ... a religious domain of reason.’

                  Like so many critics, Barth accepts a reductionist reading of Kt8 [Ba72:305], causing him to overlook the judicial nature of Kantian religion. He reveals more about his own interpretive bias than he does about Kant’s appreciation for living, empirical religion when he critically asks [314]: ‘Do we live only in the interlacing of idea and action which seems to be Kant’s single preoccupation ...?’ He proceeds to ask whether Kant may have ‘overlooked the most decisive, the deepest and most comprehensive possibility open to mankind’ [315]. A perspectival interpretation that gives proper attention to Kant’s whole System leaves ample room, as we shall see in Chapter IX, for just the kind of God-encounter that Barth believed to be missing from Kant’s philosophy.

[14].    Davidovich acknowledges the close connection between Kt7 and Kt8 [Da93a:20], claiming the latter ‘brings to completion the task of the Critical investigation.’ McCarthy [Mc86:61] calls attention to the same connection, noting that Kt7’s Appendix ‘foreshadows the contain­ment of a “purposeful Christianity” in a larger system of religious/moral purposes in [Kt8].’ But he stresses that Kt8 ‘is not a “fourth critique”’; instead, it belongs more to the metaphysical development of Kant’s System [Mc86:63-4]. Nevertheless, he does admit [105n]: ‘The ties [in Kt8] to the Third Critique remains an area worthy of more extended study.’ My point in suggesting this alternative title for Kt8 is not that it could be a fourth Critique [cf. note III.11], but that it could replace Kt7 as the third Critique, with Kt7 then being regarded as a supporting work (like Kt2 and Kt5) that does not attempt to follow the twelvefold structure Kant imposes on each of his systems. To those who accuse Kt8 of being unsystematic, Davidovich [Da93a:20] responds that Kt8 ‘provides Kant’s most systematic statement on the human condition.... Only when we read this book from the perspective of [Kt7] rather than as an addendum to [Kt4], does the full import of [Kt8] as a reflec­tive examina­tion of the innermost human aspirations for the individual and society become apparent.’

[15].    Kt1:832-3. Elsewhere Kant adds that all three ques­tions can be summed up in a fourth question, ‘What is man?’ [see note III.5]. He clearly explains the synthetic relation between the three questions in Kt1:833: ‘The first question is merely speculative’ (i.e., theoretical); the second ‘is purely practi­cal’; and the third ‘is at once practical and theoretical’. And in a 1793 letter to Stäudlin [AA11:414(Zw67:205)] he explicitly states that Kt8’s task is ‘to complete the third part of my plan.’ Religion is therefore based on an intimate connection between theory and practice, ‘a connection in which the practice determines the theory and not the theory the practice’ [We26:17] —as is required by Kant’s doctrine of the primacy of practical reason [see KSP1:VIII.4]. The result, as we shall see in Part Three, is that Kant always regards religion first and foremost in terms of actions and morality, and only secondarily as a set of creeds or doctrine.

                  In light of our emphasis on the theocentric character of Kant’s philosophy [see I.3], it is worth noting that each of his three famous questions corresponds to one of ‘the three ideas of pure reason, God, free­dom, and immortality’, all of which join together ‘to form a religion’ [Kt7:474]. God is the idea that motivates us to ask about possible knowledge; freedom is the idea that motivates us to ask about our duty; and immortality is the idea that motivates us to ask about human hope. In Kt8:157(145), Kant relates each of these ideas explicitly to religion, adding that, because of its close connection with them, ‘[n]atural religion ... is [itself] a pure practical idea of reason’.

[16].    Kt39:494(214). See also Kt35:(81): ‘Religion is the application of the moral laws to the knowl­edge of God, and not the origin of morals.... All religion assumes morality, and morality cannot, therefore, be derived from religion.’

[17].    Kt7:481. Kant makes a similar remark in Kt35:(78-9): ‘Religion is morality applied to God. It is ethics applied to theology.... Accordingly, religion is the combination of ethics and theology ...’. However, he insists in Kt39:493(211) that, even though ‘the concepts of religion always pre­suppose a theology’, in religious education ‘one must not begin with theology.... Morality must precede, theology follow, and then we have religion’ [494-5(215)]. Thus there is a strict parallel between morality and theology in their relation to religion: Kant explains in Kt65:36 that ‘theology’ is ‘the sum of certain teachings regarded as divine revelation’, whereas ‘religion’ is ‘the sum of all our duties regarded as divine commands’. The latter is echoed again in Kt7:460, where religion is defined as ‘morality in relation to God as Lawgiver’.

[18].    Kant repeats this definition of religion throughout his systematic writings, including the first Critique [Kt1:846-7], the second Critique [Kt4:129], and the third Critique [Kt7:481]. See also Kt6:440,443,487; Kt8:103-4(95); Kt65:36; and AA10:179(Zw67:84). In Kt8:110(100) Kant says ‘the per­formance of all human duties as divine commands ... constitutes the essence of all religion.’ Kant’s aim in the passage quoted in the main text is, in the words of Collins, ‘to avoid both a reductive rationalism and a reductive supernaturalism’ [Co67:180; s.a. 164-5]. In Kt9 Kant reverses this formula to produce a definition of God: ‘A Being for whom all human duties are like­wise his commands, is God’ [21.17(223)].

                  Green [Gg93:6] claims that Kant’s emphasis on the word ‘as’ in the quoted passage is mis­leadingly left out by Green and Hudson. However, the German text [AA6] shows no such emphasis. Green then misleadingly takes the ‘as’ to indicate equivalency. As we shall see in VII.1, it actually indicates the concentric relation between two unequal parts. Neglecting this, Green [11] thinks Kant is arguing for ‘an essential identity between Christian doctrine and “religion within the limits of reason alone.”’ But such an absolute reductionism would be untenable; as we shall see, the ‘as’ in Kant’s definition requires compatibility, not identity.

[19].    That pure rationalism is Kant’s position is further suggested by the fact that he repeatedly refers to his own task as that of discerning the nature of the ‘religion of pure reason’ [see e.g., Kt8:110 (100)]. Moreover, Kant ‘recognizes revelation’ in the sense that he devotes a whole sec­tion of Book Three [109-14(100-5)] to the task of discerning the ‘authentic’ principle for interpret­ing any document that purports to be revealed by God [see VIII.3.A].

[20].    Kt8:155(143); see Kt65:37. The former position, Kant says in Kt65:36, is taken up by the ‘biblical theologian’, who is ‘versed in the Scriptures with regard to ecclesiastical faith’; the latter is taken up by the ‘rational theologian’, who is ‘versed in reason with regard to religious faith’. Chapters VIII and IX will examine Christianity from these two Perspectives (in reverse order): pure rational religion, supported by philosophical theology, on the one hand, and revealed religion, supported by biblical theology, on the other.

[21].    Kt8:156(144). That Kant himself genuinely believed this to be true is indicated by his conten­tion, in a 1789 letter to Jacobi [AA11:74(Zw67:158)], that ‘if the gospel had not previously instructed us in the universal moral laws, in their total purity, our reason would not yet have discovered them so completely; yet once we are in possession of them, we can convince anyone of their correctness and validity using reason alone.’ This clearly demonstrates that Kant’s statement about morality not needing religion [Kt8:3(3)] is transcendental, not empirical.

[22].    Edwards argues that Kant’s definition of religion renders invalid everything else he says about religion simply because it is a ‘persuasive’ definition (i.e., one that merely stipulates the ‘true’ or ‘real’ character of something in order to alter, weaken, or reinforce some ‘attitudes and values’ [Ed79:42]). As a result, Edwards completely ignores the fact that Kt8 is filled with arguments to support Kant’s many claims, and that Kant presents his official definition not at the beginning of his exposition, but near the end! Moreover, the definition of a ‘persuasive’ definition, which Edwards borrows from St44:210, is itself a persuasive definition, since Edwards uses it to cast doubt upon the legitimacy of such definitions, and to divert our attention to supposedly true (i.e., ‘descriptive’) defi­nitions. So this distinction between types of definition ends up casting doubt upon its own validity (at least, as long as one believes, with Edwards, that the only ‘true’ definition is a descriptive one)! For Kant, by contrast, to allow only descriptive definitions into the philoso­phy of religion would be tantamount to giving up everything distinctively philosophical in this discipline. What Ed­wards ignores is that a transcendental definition can be nondescriptive without being ‘emotive’.

[23].    Friedman [Fr86b:519] is probably alluding to these two experiments when he says that in Kt8 ‘Kant gives us both religion within the bounds of reason and reason within the bounds of religion, for while reason is the court of final judgment, religion is the source of this vision and the determiner of its limits.’ The twofold nature of Kant’s task in Kt8 will become more clear in VII.1.

[24].    The following sketch of Kant’s religious system is a summary of the main points discussed in VII.2-3. Readers who, after reading VI.3, are not interested in a more detailed account of Kt8’s first experiment may therefore wish to skip those lengthy sections of Chapter VII.

[25].    Ernst Cassirer discusses the negative reaction to Kant’s doctrine of radical evil by his contem­poraries in Ca81:391-2. He explains, for example, that ‘Goethe ... remarked bitterly in a letter to Herder that Kant has disgracefully “slobbered on” his philosopher’s cloak “with the blot of radical evil, so that even Christ would be enticed to kiss its hem”.’ (Kant’s actual views on the issue of Jesus’s divine/perfect nature will be discussed in VIII.2.B.) To the likes of Goethe, as McCarthy rightly observes [Mc86:67], Kt8’s doctrine of radical evil ‘may have suggested intellectual treason.’ Indeed, this impression has extended well beyond Kant’s own day: ‘Kant’s doctrine of radical evil is a continual sense of embarrassment for philosophers’ [Sc93:87n]. Cassirer’s son, Heinrich Walter, himself claims [Ca88:76] that in his theory of radical evil ‘Kant has departed to a marked extent from the position he previously occupied.’ But the difference between Kant’s treatment of moral issues in Kt4 and Kt5, as compared to that in Kt8, is due to a change in standpoint, not to a rejection or revision of the position previously adopted. Barth is correct to observe that radical evil seems to disturb the neatness Kant’s System had main­tained up to that point [Ba72:296-7]; but that it nevertheless belongs to systemr will be demon­strated in VII.2.A.

[26].    Anyone who believes Kant is merely preaching a religion of good works must answer to his clear statements to the contrary, such as can be found in this and numerous other Kt8 passages! For a detailed discussion of Kant’s doctrines of atonement and grace, see AVI.2-4.

[27].    See e.g., Kt8:45(40-1),52(47),67n(61n),71-6(65-71),97-8(89),100-1(92),116-20(106-11),171-2 (159-60),173(161).

[28].    See note VIII.4. Vossenkuhl [Vo88:181] is a good example of someone who regards the threat of censorship as the main explanation for the cautious approach Kant takes in Kt8.

                  Kt8 was published just as the new king (Frederick William II) was tightening his grip on academia through a program of strict religious censorship. The idea of some interpreters, that in Kt8 Kant sometimes softens his real views, or writes with a twist of irony, in hopes of appeasing the authorities, is not only an unfounded insult to Kant’s integrity, but would also indicate a pro­found inability on Kant’s part to judge what would actually offend the authorities! For Kant was severely reprimanded for the views he expressed in Kt8, which were interpreted as being subversive to the established church’s interpretation of Christianity. He responded by loyally promising the king he would never again publish or speak publicly on the subject of religion during his reign. After the king’s death, Kant promptly resumed his public stance on religion, since his vow referred only to his duty as a servant of that particular king—a fortunate decision indeed for posterity, since Kt65 provides an invaluable inside look at Kant’s own understanding of how Kt8 ought to be interpreted. He explains and defends this decision in Kt65:5-11, and includes an explicit statement [Kt65:9-10] indicating the religious seriousness with which he composed his writings: ‘I always pictured this judge [viz., the voice of God speaking through the conscience] as standing at my side to keep me not only from error that corrupts the soul, but even from any careless expression that might give offense.’

[29].    For a more complete statement of Kant’s solution to the traditional problem of the conflict between faith and works, see AVI.4.

[30].    A typical example of the many commentators who misunderstand this point is MacKinnon, who refers to Kant’s ‘rejection of prayer as unworthy of the responsible human individual’ [Ma90a: 354]. McCarthy’s position in Mc86:95 sounds the same at first, but turns out to be more accurate. He says prayer and other acts of worship ‘are all worthless in making one well-pleasing to God.’ This seems to ignore their legitimate role as indirect ways of serving God [see AVII.1,4 and AVIII.1]. But McCarthy is at least partially aware of this qualification to his previous claim: ‘prayer can awaken the disposition to goodness, while it cannot obtain grace.’

[31].    Loades [Lo81:304], for example, claims Kant ‘eliminates ecclesiastical claims to the posses­sion of revealed truth.’ But as we have seen, his reduction is not eliminative, but explanatory. He therefore does not intend to eliminate revelation, but to bind it necessarily to morality.

[32].    Micah 6:6-8, e.a. Quoted from New American Standard Bible (Carol Stream, Ill.: Creation House, Inc., 1960).

 

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